ENGLISH 386, conference on Mon/Wed, 2:40-4:00PM, V228
Nathalia King, office hours on Mon and Wed from 4:00-5:00PM, on Th from 4:30-5:30PM and by apt.

Course Description

Full course for one semester. “Written words have been combined with visual images in forms which range from the explanatory to the enigmatic, from the constructive to the contradictory, from the iconic to the irreverent,” writes Leslie Ross. This course will focus on text-image relations in paper and print media, including children’s literature, illuminated manuscripts, illustrated texts, collage, texts with photographs, graphic novels, and artist’s books. Our study will be guided by the following questions: How do word-image compositions deploy both media to enrich meaning-making while also engaging with their dissonance or dissociation? How do words and images differently engage sight, perception, ideas, and emotions? How do words and images invoke the presence of other media, such as music or cinema? How do words and images each convey symbolic or metaphoric content or use syntax and argument? How do text and image represent, illuminate, distort, or amplify elements of the subconscious or of consciousness; of the construction of gender, race, and class; of fictional and historical narratives?

Learning Goals

  1. Refine and embolden visual literacy
  2. Refine and embolden close reading
  3. Think critically, analytically, and creatively about text-image relations from different historical periods, different cultures, and in different media

Primary Texts

With the exception of the Epistre d’Othea (2-hour library reserve), texts are available for sale at the Reed bookstore. Critical and theoretical readings are linked to the syllabus. Texts will be supplemented by images on websites or in galleries also linked to the syllabus.

  • Outside Over There, Maurice Sendak (New York: HarperCollins,1981)
  • The Raven Steals the Light, Bill Reid, Robert Bringhurst (Seattle, WA: University of Washington, 1996)
  • Epistre d’Othéa, Christine de Pizan, ed.and trans. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski (Toronto: Iter Press, 2017)
  • http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/otea.html
    Website with images and text in original French presented in scroll form. Image and text are numbered (1-100) just under each image.
  • http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/gallery/pages/099v.htm
    Website with photos of each page of the original MS, starting on p. 2 of the site at 095r.jpeg
  • Songs of Innocence and Experience, William Blake, (New York: Dover, 1992 [1794])
  • Paradise Lost, John Milton, ed. Kasten, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005 [1667])
  • Blake’s illustrations of Paradise Lost (Thomas, Butts and Linnell sets, Wikipedia) 
  • Dore’s Illustrations for Paradise Lost, Gustave Dore, (New York: Dover,1993 [ca.1866])
  • The Hundred Headless Woman, Max Ernst & Dorothea Tanning (New York: Dover, 2017 [1929])
  • Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud (New York: Harper Collins,1994)
  • Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
  • Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald (New York: Modern Library, 2001)
  • Fine Art Books in Reed Special Collections and Archives: https://rdc.reed.edu/c/artbooks/home/browse-books

Conference Participation and Written Assignments

Your consistent attendance and participation are essential to the success of this course. Come to conference prepared to actively engage with the primary texts, or respond to and elaborate on interpretations proposed by others.  Absence from more than 3 conferences puts you at risk of failing this course.

You will be responsible for presenting work to conference on one of the day’s assigned readings every other week (on every other Monday or on every other Wednesday). This work must be submitted to me by noon before conference: I will project it for the conference as you present it. Submit assignments as google docs. Please make frequent use of office hours to ask questions and exchange ideas about the readings and your written assignments.

There are different kinds of written assignments for these presentations:

  1. A synthesis: distill from the critical or theoretical reading its 3-6 most central claims in the order of their importance and in your own You may need to outline the reading to arrive at your synthesis, but do not present an outline. Word limit: 180
  2. A single-spaced one-paragraph commentary on a word-image pair that you have selected. Create a google doc on which that text and image appear together with your analysis. Word limit: 400
  3. A 4-page paper that provides a close reading of a specific text-image relation, thinking with or against the ideas in a single quote from the critical or theoretical reading. Include your selected quote in full in the text of the paper. Word limit: 2000
  4. OR a creative and original imitation of the primary text with an artist’s statement about your process and an analysis of the elements in the original that you seek to imitate. Word limit: 2000
  5. OR a 4-page paper that provides a close reading of a specific text-image relation from a fine art book in the Reed archives. Word limit: 2000 

The order in which you cycle through these assignments (1; 2; 3, 4 or 5) will be determined on the first day of class. Each student will complete a total of 6 written assignments: 2 synopses; 2 text-image analyses; two 4-pages papers or creative imitations. 

Using artificial intelligence to prepare either oral presentations or written assignments is not conducive to developing your curiosity or your own modes of learning. Using any work composed by others (including A.I.) without appropriate citation is a violation of the honor principle. Either will result in failing this course.

Policies at Reed College regarding the use of AI assistance vary from course to course. It is your responsibility to familiarize yourself with, and adhere to, the policy for each course.