Showing posts with label American University. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American University. Show all posts

Friday, October 29, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

April 28: Joe Sacco to speak to Prof Wenthe's class at AU

Professor Michael Wenthe writes in to tell us

Next Wednesday, April 28, at 2:10 P.M. in the atrium of the Battelle-Tompkins building here at American University, Joe Sacco will give a presentation and discussion of his work (notably _Footnotes in Gaza_) as the final event in my section of LIT 215: Writers in Print / in Person. Strictly speaking, this event will constitute the last class session for the course, so pride of place for the attendees will be my eighteen students (who discussed Sacco's work this past week), but we're holding it as an open, public event in in conjunction with the Middle East Studies Program here at AU and it will be generally advertised on campus.

Personally I've never heard Sacco speak, but I like his work. I'm sorry to miss this, but work is precluding my attendance.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Oct 25: Bechdel day at Katzen Arts Center

* 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
* Visiting Writing Series presents Department of Literature Annual Colloquium, featuring Alison Bechdel
* Battelle-Tompkins Atrium

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home

Welcome! Each year, the American University students, faculty, staff, alumni and other members of the greater community come together for one day to explore a great book. Subjects of previous colloquia include Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.

We invite you to participate in the seventh annual Department of Literature Colloquium, featuring Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel.


About the Author and the Book

Named by Time magazine in 2006 as one of the “10 Best Booksof the Year,” Bechdel’s Fun Home was a finalist for a 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. Of Bechdel’s memoir, Amy Bloom has written: “If David Sedaris could draw, and if Bleak House had been a little funnier, you’d have Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” Bechdel is also known for her acclaimed, long-running comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. A graduate of Oberlin College, she lives near Burlington, Vermont, where she is now completing a second graphic memoir, Love Life: A Case Study. Alison Bechdel’s appearance is sponsored by the Visiting Writers Series and the Bishop McCabe Lecture Series.
Schedule: Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009

Register Online (by Oct. 21)

9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Colloquium in
Battelle-Tompkins Atrium
(Presentations to be announced!)
See Campus Directions/Maps

3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Lecture with Alison Bechdel,
Katzen Arts Center,
Abramson Family Recital Hall

Questions?

Literature
202-885-2971
lit@american.edu
Battelle Tompkins, Room 237

Thanks to Rick Banning for the tip.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Feiffer exhibit closes this weekend

If you haven't seen it, the Feiffer exhibit at American University closes this weekend. Here's our earlier post with the information. I'm not going to make the show, but if there's a brochure, I'd appreciate getting one.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Nate Beeler featured in American University's magazine

I found this magazine in the library's sale section today:


Which led to finding this link to American University's alumni magazine for you gentle readers - "Drawn to Washington: Editorial cartoonist for the Washington Examiner, Nate Beeler '02 has a ringside seat for D.C.'s political circus," by Adrienne Frank, American (Spring 2008): 26-27. I don't know why he doesn't tell me about these things - maybe it's the new baby. By the way, the Examiner started running his work in color this past week.

Bought at the same library - three Story magazines, just for R.O. Blechman's covers:

If you haven't read Blechman's graphic novels, such as The Juggler of Our Lady, step away from this website and hunt them up through a used bookseller NOW.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

American U Prof Wenthe's graphic novel class

Michael got a press release yesterday. I'd take his course if I could.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/536090/
Source: American University
Released: Mon 10-Dec-2007, 12:50 ET

Graphic Novels Reach Academia

Newswise — Graphic novels, comic books’ grown up counterpart, have gained popular appeal in the last five years thanks to blockbuster Hollywood movies based on graphic novels like 300, Sin City, Ghost Rider and V for Vendetta. Now they have a place in academia. American University literature professor Michael Wenthe has brought the medium to the Department of Literature with a course titled, "The Graphic Novel."

“This definitely is a time when comics in general, and graphic novels as a species of them, have found a lot more general acceptance,” said Wenthe, who also creates comics along with graduate school friend Isaac Cates. “It would not have been nearly as easy to teach such a course 10 years ago, in part because there’s been an explosion of really good material in the last 10 years, but also because the wider public discourse about comics has gotten a lot more nuanced.”

An expert in medieval literature, Wenthe introduces students to the literary characters in graphic novels that find their roots in medieval literature and even the works of Shakespeare. The class has 13 required books including Jimmy Corrigan—the Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware, a 380-page exploration of the bleak life of a middle-aged man and his family’s 100-year history of withdrawal and loneliness. Also required are Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home, Joe Sacco and Christopher Hitchens’ journalistic Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, Lynda Barry’s award-winning 100 Demons, and the complex City of Glass, written in part by Paul Karasik, who visited the class.

No longer relegated to the ever-ridiculed comic book store, graphic novels delve deeper into the human experience, rarely feature a superhero and are now popping up with regularity in libraries and book stores. Many graphic novels have even garnered major literary prizes, including the American Book Award. Wenthe is not the only academic teaching the virtues of comic books. Wake Forest University Sociologist Saylor Breckenridge has researched the subject, studying the relationship between comic books and popular culture.

Wenthe was trained in medieval literature at Duke, Harvard, Oxford, and Yale. His primary research interest – aside from graphic novels – involves international literature of King Arthur, and his current book project has the working title Arthurian Outsiders: The Dynamic of Difference in the Matter of Britain.

American University (www.american.edu) is a leader in global education, enrolling a diverse student body from throughout the U.S. and nearly 150 countries. Located in Washington, D.C., the university provides opportunities for academic excellence, public service and internships in the nation’s capital and around the world.