Reading Graphic Novels in School: texts, contexts and the interpretive work of critical reading

This paper uses the example of an extra-curricular Graphic Novel Reading Group in order to explore the institutional critical reading practices that take place in English classrooms in the senior years of secondary school. Drawing on Stanley Fish's theory of interpretive communities, it questions the restrictive interpretive strategies applied to literary texts in curriculum English. By looking closely at the interpretive strategies pupils apply to a different kind of text (graphic novels) in an alternative context (an extra-curricular space) the paper suggests that there may be other ways of engaging with text that pupils find less alienating, more pleasurable and less reminiscent of 'work'

The Influence of Manga on the Graphic Novel

This material has been published in The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel edited by Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey, Stephen E. Tabachnick. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University PressProviding a range of cogent examples, this chapter describes the influences of the Manga genre of comics strip on the Graphic Novel genre, over the last 35 years, considering the functions of domestication, foreignisation and transmedia on readers, markets and forms

Fixing Freud: The Oedipus Complex in Early Twenty-First Century US American Novels

Representations of Sigmund Freud in early 21st century US American novels rely on and respond to the image of Freud that emerged from investigations by Paul Roazen ( Brother Animal, 1969) and Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson ( The Assault on Truth, 1984), which cast doubt on the validity of the Oedipus complex. Relying on Roazen, Brenda Webster\u27s Vienna Triangle (2009) links Freud\u27s oedipal thinking to paranoia and male masochism. Working with Masson, Selden Edwards\u27s The Little Book (2008) takes Freud to task for abandoning the seduction theory in favor of the Oedipus complex. Jed Rubenfeld\u27s The Interpretation of Murder (2006) rethinks the Oedipus complex as a projection of adults onto their children. All three novels seek to celebrate Freud\u27s understanding of the human psyche, while shifting the focus of the oedipal structure away from the murderous and lustful child toward the adult

E-Graphic Novels

peer reviewedThis chapter presents an overview of how the contemporary graphic novel intersects with digital culture, focusing on three dimensions: the resistance to the digital and the complex relationship to print culture, practices of digitization and their impact on the reading process, and finally born digital e-graphic novels experimenting with digital technologies