Popular Culture and Narrative: Literature, Comics, and Culture
MIT OpenCourseWare offers the syllabus and materials for this literature course examining how comics and literary fiction shape each other. Readings span the nineteenth century to the present and include novels, short stories, essays, classic and contemporary comics, and a handful of films, tracing how comic conventions grew out of earlier literary and cultural forms and how graphic narratives have pushed back against the line between highbrow and lowbrow storytelling. The course is structured around discussion questions rather than lectures, with students expected to complete diligent reading, take part in class discussion, occasionally lead a session, and write two papers. Materials are provided free through MIT OpenCourseWare under a Creative Commons license, with no certificate offered. It suits readers interested in narrative theory, media history, or the formal overlap between prose fiction and sequential art.