[Comicsstudiessociety] Disability in Comics seminar: readings, resources you'd recommend?

Wed Jul 1 17:29:37 EDT 2020

Thanks, Adrienne!

PS. I used *Hawkeye* #19 in the course last time, and plan for my students
to read that comic this time, too; it's so teachable! But I decided to swap
out the image from *Hawkeye *#19 I had used on the course flyer last time,
due to concern that calling deafness a "disability" is question-begging, or
even could come across as contentious. I do have several readings planned
around hard-of-hearing or deaf characters, some with Deaf culture, but I'm
not sure I want to "lead" with an image of deafness in the flyer. OTOH, the
flyer I sent to the list just now has its own problems: the image there
(from *The Oracle Code*) doesn't seem to register the way I want it to,
when taken from context. I've attached here another pass at the flyer,
using a different image from the same book.

One problem is trying to connote "disability" in a flyer in a visual but
not exploitative way (cue disability scholars' remarks about visuality and
disability). This latest version again uses wheelchair imagery, which I
think is okay in this context (but belies the fact that a number of
readings in the course will focus on "invisible" disabilities).

CH

On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 1:51 PM Adrienne Resha <aresha at email.wm.edu> wrote:

> I write about accessibility using *Hawkeye* #19 and cite Baynton’s
> “Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History” in “The
> Blue Age of Comic Books,” <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/756729> which was
> published in the most recent issue of *Inks*. There’s also, again from
> *Inks*, “Accessible Articulations: Comics and Disability Rhetorics in *Hawkeye
> *#19” <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/710243> by Dale Jacobs and Jay
> Dolmage.
>
>
>
> Adrienne Resha
> PhD Candidate, American Studies
> The College of William & Mary
> CSS GSC <http://gradcaucus.comicssociety.org> President
> aresha at email.wm.edu
>
> On Jul 1, 2020, at 4:34 PM, Charles Hatfield via ComicsStudiesSociety <
> comicsstudiessociety at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear CSS colleagues,
>
> I'm reviving my "Disability in Comics" grad course this fall (see attached
> flyer), and looking for ways to diversify and update the syllabus.
> Recommendations, questions, and discussion are welcome!
>
> This class, FYI, will be entirely online (a first for my grad courses),
> but I'm planning synchronous Zoom meetings most weeks, as well as
> student-driven discussion launches and weekly online posts around the major
> readings. I hope we can maintain the interactive, discussion-driven nature
> of an ideal grad seminar. Strategies for doing that would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> If you'd like to know more, or think you might have readings/resources to
> recommend, read on!
>
> Here, in roughly the order of use, are the required comics readings my
> class did the last time I taught this course, Spring 2017 (readings marked
> * were provided to students in PDF via our private, password-protected
> Canvas site):
>
>    - Pekar & Warneford, *American Splendour: Transatlantic Comics**
>    - Green, *Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary*
>    - Bechdel, *Fun Home*
>    - Davison, excerpts from *The Spiral Cage**
>    - Waid, Rivera & Martin, *Daredevil*, Vol. 1
>    - Moore & Willingham, “In Blackest Night,” from *Tales of the Green
>    Lantern Corps Annual* #3 (1987)*
>    - Drake, Haney & Premiani, “The Doom Patrol,” from *My Greatest
>    Adventure* #80 (June 1963)*
>    - Kirby & Lee, *X-Men *#1 (Sept. 1963)*
>    - Mantlo & Elias, “Death-Walk,” from *Human Fly* #1 (Sept. 1977)*
>    - Bell, *El Deafo*
>    - Fraction & Aja, *Hawkeye *#19 (Sept. 2014)
>    - Lambert, *Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller*
>    - Daigle & Daigle, *That Deaf Guy *(thatdeafguy.com)
>    - Forney, *Marbles*
>    - David B., *Epileptic*
>    - Dunlap-Shohl, *My Degeneration: A Journey through Parkinson’s*
>
>
> And here are the critical readings we did (mostly provided via CSUN
> library ebooks, library reserves, and PDFs):
>
>    - Adams, Reiss, & Serlin, eds., *Keywords for Disability Studies*
>    - Alaniz, *Death, Disability, and the Superhero *(which of course
>    inspired some of the above comics readings!)
>    - Couser, “Disability, Life Narrative, and Representation”
>    - El Refaie, “Life Writing from the Colorful Margins” and  “Picturing
>    Embodied Selves”
>    - Witek, “Justin Green: Autobiography Meets the Comics”
>    - Baynton, “Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American
>    History”
>    - Garland-Thomson, Chs. One and Two of *Extraordinary Bodies*
>    - Mitchell & Snyder, excerpt from *Narrative Prosthesis*, in Davis,
>    ed., *Disability Studies Reader*
>    - Scotch, “American Disability Policy in the Twentieth Century”
>    - Chute, “Animating an Archive,” in *Graphic Women*
>    - Galvan, “Thinking through Thea,” in Foss, Gray, & Whalen, eds., *Disability
>    in Comic Books and Graphic Narratives*
>    - Couser, “Rhetoric and Self-Representation in Disability Memoir”
>    - McIlvenny, “The Disabled Male Body ‘Writes/Draws Back’”
>    - Williams, “Comics and the Iconography of Illness,” in Czerwiec,
>    Williams, et al., *Graphic Medicine Manifesto*
>    - Quayson, excerpt from *Aesthetic Nervousness*, in Davis, ed., *Disability
>    Studies Reader*
>    - Burch, “Reading between the Signs”
>    - Nielsen, “Helen Keller and the Politics of Civic Fitness”
>    - Dadey, “Breaking Quarantine,” *ImageTexT, *Vol. 7, No. 2, Fall 2013
>
> This time, I'm planning to add Køhlert's chapter on Al Davison from *Serial
> Selves*, and some selections from *Uncanny Bodies*, eds. Smith and
> Alaniz. We may also use the forthcoming *Comics Studies: A Guidebook*,
> since this class will consist mostly of students who haven't studied comics
> academically before.
>
> But I'm particularly anxious to update and diversify the readings to deal
> more fully with questions of intersectionality. That is, I'd like comics
> and critical perspectives that will serve to underscore intersections of
> disability with race, class, and sexuality. Recent scholarship that gives
> new models of thinking about racialized disability would be esp. helpful.
>
> *Any readings or resources you would recommend?*
>
> PS. If any of you would like to take this discussion off-list, into fine
> details, I can provide a full syllabus from the 2017 class, etc.
>
> PPS. I've been having some trouble seeing replies to my CSS listserv
> messages, so please forgive any delays! Hopefully I won't miss any replies
> this time.
>
> CH
>
> Charles Hatfield
>
> CSU Northridge, Los Angeles
> <525DC flyer F20.pdf>_______________________________________________
> ComicsStudiesSociety mailing list
> ComicsStudiesSociety at lists.osu.edu
> https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/comicsstudiessociety
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/private/comicsstudiessociety/attachments/20200701/764ca427/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 525DC flyer F20.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 231968 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/private/comicsstudiessociety/attachments/20200701/764ca427/attachment.pdf>