University of San Francisco
Fall 2016

A seminar course for incoming first year students designed to introduce them to new concepts and ideas while also intersecting these ideas with the history and culture of San Francisco. It explored a range of ideas, themes and creative works all considered part of the language of comics, looking beyond mainstream genres into the unexpected and acclaimed ways in which comics are used to tell stories at the margins: to address politics, history, identity and place in ways less possible in other mediums. This course examined comics that engage in memoir, journalism, non-western perspectives, gender, local history and culture, and digital culture. This class combined lecture, discussion, in-class presentations, analytical papers, creative research projects, and excursions.