Most of the theoretical essays for the course are in The Power of Comics, A Comics Studies Reader, or Critical Approaches to Comics. Occasionally there will be essays from other sources that can be found here.

Week 1

• Newgarden and Karasik, "How to Read Nancy" in The Best of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy by Brian Walker (Henry Holt/Comicana, 1988). 

Week 2 

• Theresa Fine-Pawsey, "How to Mark a Comic" 

Week 3

• Umberto Eco, "The Myth of Superman" Diacritics 2.1 (1972), 14-22. 
• Ben Saunders, "Superman: Truth, Justice, and All that Stuff," Do the gods wear capes? Spirituality, fantasy, and superheroes. (2011)

Week 4

• Iain Thompson, "Deconstructing the Superhero," Comics as Philosophy 

Week 6

• Neil Cohn, "What is Visual Language?"
• —, "A Visual Lexicon" Public Journal of Semiotics. 1(1):53-84.
• —, "Extra! Extra! Semantics in comics!" Journal of Pragmatics 42 (11):3138–3146.
• Canis & Canis, "Jean-Paul Sartre Meets Enid Coleslaw" 

Week 7

• Hillary Chute, "Comics as Literature? Reading Graphic Narrative," PMLA, Volume 123, Number 2, Mar 2008, pp. 452–465 (14)

Week 8

• Kristian Williams "The Case for Comics Journalism: Artist-Reporters Leap Tall Conventions in a Single Bound.” Columbia Journalism Review. March/April 2005.
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Week 10

• Thoreau, Walden, Ch2  
• Coughlan, "Paul Auster's City of Glass: the Graphic Novel"
• Ferstl, “Novel-Based Comics”
• Zanettin, “Comics in translation”

Week 11

• Interview: Jim Ottaviani 
• Ottaviani, "Why comics about scientists?"
• Tatalovic, “Science comics as tools for science education and communication,” 
• Cheesman, “Using Comics in the Science Classroom” 

Week 12

• Canis & Canis, "Jean-Paul Sartre Meets Enid Coleslaw" 
• Iain Thompson, "Deconstructing the Superhero," Comics as Philosophy 

Week 13

• Cohn, “A Different Kind of Cultural Frame”
• Cohn, “Japanese Visual Language” 

Week 14

• Bunn, “The lie detector, Wonder Woman and liberty: the life and work of William Moulton Marston”
• Rhodes, “Wonder Woman and Her Disciplinary Powers: The Queer Intersection of Scientific Authority and Mass Culture”
• Recommended: Marston, Emotions of Normal People (Selections) 
• Recommended: Marston, "Women: Servants of Civilization"