• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

A (Graphic) Novel Idea for Social Justice: Comics, Critical Theory, and A Contextual Graphic Narratology Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Karly Marie Grice, M.A. Graduate Program in Education: Teaching & Learning The Ohio State University 2017 Dissertation Committee: Patricia Enciso, Advisor Michelle Ann Abate, Co-advisor Melinda Rhoades, Committee Member Caroline Clark, Committee Member 1 Copyrighted by Karly Marie Grice 2017 Abstract In my dissertation, I develop a combination of structural and critical theories for the medium-specific analysis of comics for children and young adults. I begin by laying a historical foundation of the medium of comics and a visual culture analytic framework to delineate my specific methodology of research, a contextualized graphic narratology. As of the writing of this dissertation, this work is the only extended, single-authored exploration into the construction and implications of comics for children and young adults. Within the following chapters, I combine the medium specific tools of a formalist comics study with the field-based knowledge of the function of children’s and young adult narratives. I use these combined analytic tools to not only further the growth of a new comics scholarship but also to investigate how comics for children and young adults are using the implied reader to push the boundaries of the definition of “child.” Looking at two comics series for young readers, Lumberjanes and the March trilogy, I explore how what I call tools of disruption are woven into the visual constructions in order to play with reader’s experiences and expectations, provoke them into questioning the texts they are reading and the world around them, and push them to lay the foundation for imagined alternatives. I conclude by discussing the importance of my framework as a means of generative dialogic interdisciplinarity in the fields of children’s literature, literacy education, and youth culture studies in their efforts to teach, read, and write for social justice. ii Dedication Dedicated to my academic family, including the mothers who guided me, the sisters (and brother) who grew with me, and the children who galvanized me iii Acknowledgements I am so very thankful for all the people who have helped me along the way. I want to first thank my family—Mom, Dad, Casey, and Chris. Thank you for believing in me and supporting me through my schooling…which has somehow lasted for the majority of my life. I can’t wait for you to see me walk across this last stage. Y’all should be the ones who get to toss the cap instead. I also want to thank my extensive academic family for being there for me. First, my writing group: Ashley Dallacqua, Sara Kersten Parrish, Eileen Shanahan, and Sarah Lightner. I couldn’t have done it without you, my Academic Goddesses. You helped me redefine my understanding of academia, scholarship, vulnerability, and competition in loving and supportive terms. “Friendship to the max!”—even if we’ll be in four different time zones. I also want to deeply thank my two friends who were there with me until the end, Ryan and Caitlin. I’m always in awe of your passion and insight. Thank you for not only sharing them with me but also using them to read me with the greatest possible kindness. You didn’t just cheer me on while I fought; you were in the arena with me, equally “marred by dust and sweat and blood.” Thank you for daring greatly with me. Of course, I couldn’t have done this without the amazing feedback I received from my professors and committee. Jared Gardner provided so much support and inspiration as both a professor and candidacy committee member. I can’t believe I’ll get to walk away from my doctoral career saying, “I know him!” Mindi Rhoades was such a iv cheerleader for me, helping me wade through the quagmire of visual culture and assuring me that my work had a place within the field. Thank you for believing in me when I was certain all I had was gobbledygook. And then Caroline Clark stepped in as my superhero, saving the day last minute and doing so with such compassionate support and engaging questions. I couldn’t imagine this project completed without you! Lastly are my advising twin pillars. First, Michelle Ann Abate, you are solid #professorgoals. Thank you for always treating me as an equal, providing me with so many opportunities, and having so much confidence that I could get them done. Every Ernie needs a Bert like you. My deepest thank you goes to Pat Enciso. Your selfless devotion to your students and the world of educational research is awe inspiring. I hope I can live up to even a fraction of your expectations for me and be a source for good, working for the great change I see you working towards every day. Thank you for pushing me onward and guiding me through the forest when I was lost in the trees. Your support always reached me when I thought I couldn’t go any further, encouraging me to “get up, keep moving.” Thank you for pulling me up and helping me finally get to walk. It’s because of you that I will continue to march. v Vita 2007…………………………………………B.A. Secondary Education in English, Clemson University 2013…………………………………………M.A. English, Illinois State University 2013-2017…………………………………...Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Education, The Ohio State University Publications “ ‘What Is China But a People and Their (Visual) Stories?’: The Synthetic in Narratives of Contest in Gene Yang’s Boxers & Saints.” Graphic Novels for Young Readers: A Collection of Critical Essays. Eds. Michelle Ann Abate and Gwen Athene Tarbox. Jackson: U of Mississippi, 2017. 32-44. “First Opinion: Defying Expectations and Limitations in Drum Dream Girl.” First Opinions, Second Reactions. 9.3 (2016). Article 5. Web. “Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep? Robot Dreams as Children’s Graphic Medicine.” Red Feather Journal 6.2 (2015): 75-91. “Journey to the Center of a Vlog: One Woman’s Exploration of the Genre of Video Blogs.” Grassroots Writing Research Journal 3.1 (2012): 31-37. Fields of Study Major Field: Education: Teaching & Learning, Literature for Children and Young Adults vi Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………….…iv Vita………………………………………………………………………………...……...vi Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2: The History of a Making and Unmaking: Contextualizing Comics for Children and Young Adults and Seeing Visual Constructions…………………………………….22 Chapter 3: Falling in Stepping out of Little Red Formation: (Re)writing Images of Gender in Lumberjanes………………………………………………………...…...……85 Chapter 4: “To the Past and Future Children of the Movement”: (Re)seeing Race and History through Stylistic Variation in March……………………………...…...………132 Chapter 5: Conclusion: (Re)making Comics for Children and Young Adults…………177 References………………………………………………………………………………194 vii Chapter 1: Introduction A Narrative of Exploration My Circuitous Road to Comics As a public high school English teacher in South Carolina, I rarely came across comics in educational spaces. My undergraduate experience as a Secondary Education in English major led to a couple brief encounters with the grittier “adult” comics in a college English course on contemporary U.S. literature. The course syllabus was filled with works about middle class midlife crises gone wrong (Dickey’s Deliverance), the lasting traumatic repercussions of war (O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods), and the moral “grey zone” of survival at all costs (Nelson’s The Grey Zone: Director’s Notes and Screenplay)—not really the kinds of texts that would get approval from my future administration to use in the classroom. Yet two texts assigned that semester helped open my eyes to the potential of comics: Max Allan Collins and Richard Rayner’s Road to Perdition and Art Spiegelman’s Maus. At the time, I had no knowledge of the seminal role Spiegelman’s memoir of his childhood/history of his father’s Holocaust experience held in the comics world; I only knew that the text was powerful and spoke of the unspeakable in ways that were greater than the sum of their visual parts. Even though both of these graphic narratives challenged my understanding of literature, literacy, and how comics could fit into both categories, I had no further experiences with comics during my undergraduate education. My children’s and young 1 adult literature classes were filled with classic, contemporary, and critical works that expanded my world and taught me to see both young people and the literature written for them in complex ways. However, these were mostly traditional monomodal texts; visuals were reserved for the younger children’s picturebooks or photographs in nonfiction texts. So while comics had made a triumphant return through the burgeoning comics studies field and within English classrooms that focused on contemporary adult literature, they did not really have a place in the children’s and young adult literature classroom in the early 2000s. The beginning of my teaching career coincided with a watershed moment in comics for children and young adults: the publication of Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. Like most first year teachers, I was trying to keep my head above the water. Keeping up to date on recent publications took a backseat to teaching the curriculum, managing my students, communicating with parents, and grading all the papers. My interest in comics as a literary art form was figuratively and literally shelved. My undergraduate copy of Maus rested on my classroom bookshelf along with the countless other young adult books I had collected to provide my students with a classroom library.

Load more

  218

Copy Link