The rise of the comics künstlerroman, or, the limits of comics acceptance: the depiction of comics creators in the work of Michael Chabon and Emily St. John Mandel

The künstlerroman is a genre with a long and celebrated past. From Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park (2005) to John Irving’s The World According to Garp (1978) and Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift (1975), the genre has occupied a prominent place in bestseller lists and awards shortlists. The enduring popularity and continued critical celebration of the künstlerroman makes it all the more striking that, since the turn of the millennium a new kind of author-protagonist has emerged — the graphic-novelist-protagonist. This move not only inducts graphic novelists into this existing — and prestigious — literary genre, it also draws them into the same struggle for recognition in which other novelist-protagonists have long been involved. Drawing on the recent examples of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014), in this article I argue that there is a clear move toward the serious discussion of comics and comics creators in contemporary literature, an increasing willingness to talk about comics and their makers that is marked by a surprising faith in the fitness of comics as a mode of self-expression and a recognition of the clear kinship between prose authors and graphic novelists.N/

Collection Development and the Value of the Library

This is a draft 2 of a discussion paper written for Boston University LibrariesDiscusses recent trends in scholarly communication and library collection developmen

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's salutation of Beatrice pictures as Victorian comics

Accepted manuscrip

“Bloody Outrages of a Most Barbarous Enemy:” The Cultural Implications of the Massacre at Fort William Henry

The August 10, 1757 massacre at Fort William Henry contradicted eighteenth-century European standards for warfare. Although British colonial opinion blamed it on Native American depravity, France‘s Native American allies acted within their own cultural parameters. Whereas the French and their British enemies believed in the supremacy of the state as the model for conduct, Native Americans defined their political and military relations on a personal level that emphasized mutual obligations. With the fort‘s surrender, however, the French and British attempted and failed to bring European cultural norms into the American wilderness. While the French triumphed in Fort William Henry‘s capitulation, Native Americans required plunder, scalps, and prisoners to prove individual valor and an honorable victory. Denied the spoils of victory with the surrender, they seized the initiative in their assault on the siege‘s survivors. The massacre at Fort William Henry revealed a gruesome divergence between two differing concepts of diplomacy and warfare

Professor Bryan Harris Remembered: Volez to a Pierce Law Friend

Bryan Harris, MA (Oxon), passed away recently in his beloved native England, after a brief illness. His wife Mary, two sons and a daughter survive him. Bryan Harris had a long and distinguished career as an author, educator, barrister, diplomat, publisher and lobbyist. He was a consultant on European Union policies and laws to commercial and professional firms and associations. For almost three decades he was a Member of the Board of Trustees and Adjunct Professor of European Union Law at Pierce Law. Pierce Law President and Dean, John Hutson summed up what many members of the Pierce Law community expressed to me as I prepared this tribute saying, I think of Bryan mostly in single words ... jovial, cheerful, humble, dignified, diplomatic, caring ... Dean Huston shared that Professor Harris will be recognized during the 2004 Commencement

Adventures in Rightsizing : Enhancing Discovery and Research With Open Access Journals in the University Library

Academic libraries have long had print journal collections to support the university’s discovery and research needs. However, they are also continually challenged with needs for relevant content, cost control, and space issues; some academic libraries have downsized their print journal collections as a result. Many academic libraries are replacing some print journal subscriptions with online subscriptions and supplementing with open access journals. Pittsburg State University’s (PSU) Axe Library faces the challenge of providing journal access in order to support the university’s needs and stay on budget. To that end, PSU drastically weeded its print journals in 2016 and later began to rightsize the subscription print and online journals. In 2017, it also began rightsizing open access journals due to noticing high usage statistics for open access journals not in the library’s journal portal, duplication of open access journals in various open access databases, and bad URLs for open access journals. This article details PSU’s efforts to rightsize open access journals with the goal being a relevant journal collection and services to enhance the discovery and research experience