EWL 307 The Visual Memoir
In this course, students will analyze visual forms of memoir. Students will read examples of narrative and visual texts–film, graphic memoir, fine art, photography, memorial monuments, and vlogs-to examine how narrative memoir may encode non-verbal expressions of memory; how non-verbal expressions of memory may compensate for, complement, and even confound the grammar and tense of lineal narration; and how visual expression of memory shares what is un-shareable in verbal narrative memoir: re-enactment of trauma; ontological alienation and historical testimony; universal and personal manifestations of identity; and fragmentation, integration, and disintegration of the self. Students will apply critical theory from a variety of perspectives including literary and culture studies; film studies; historiography; psychoanalysis; rhetoric; linguistics and translation theory; and gender and sexually studies.