#405 Teaching comics as literature

300

It’s been a long time coming, but a fair number of teachers in mainstream American education are finally recognizing that what the comics medium brings to the table can be just as meaty and challenging as the best prose novels. This week we meet Juan Mah y Busch, an Associate Professor at Loyola Marymount University. Juan teaches comics like Frank Miller’s 300 and Anders Nilsen’s Dogs and Water not in special “comics appreciation” courses, but alongside novels like Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” to make other points about cultural history.

How do fellow faculty and administrators react to comics in the classroom? Do students have any trouble with the concept? Why can comics often be better for teaching cultural history than most other media? That and more in this episode!