Disciplining Comics: Teaching in the Humanities with Graphic Histories

Comics are serious stuff. Non-fiction graphic novels are suddenly everywhere, and many deal with the events, experiences, and ramifications of the past. They offer readers access to issues of memory, power, biography, and inter-generational trauma. They also provide unique opportunities for students to encounter and construct meaningful and usable histories. Too often, however, we teach them as if they were merely illustrated texts, and as a result our students miss out on the opportunity to learn how to read and think about the past in multiple modalities. In this webinar, historian and graphic history author Trevor R. Getz will discuss ways to bring the learning opportunities of the comic medium to the humanities classroom.