Course Syllabus
Language, Literature and Culture 597M
3 credits
Mondays, 14:30-17:15
Prof. Benjamim Picado (Fullbright-Chair of Brazilian Studies)
Machmer Hall 308
Office Hours: by appointment
Email: jpicadosousa@umass.edu; jbpicado@hotmail.com
Course Content: This course proposes an examination of new inflections occurring in aspects of stylistic and thematic dimensions of the discursive production of graphic humor, in the context of newspaper´s editorial cartooning and daily strips, with a focus on issues that are proper to Brazilian contemporary visual culture. In such a context, it is aimed at the analysis of an empirical universe of creators working under the most important Brazilian newspaper, Folha de São Paulo.
The course will mainly concentrate on artists like Laerte Coutinho, Angeli, João Montanaro, Bennet, among others, to identify new inflections of visual humor – either in terms of narrative, graphic, plastic, and thematic strategies adopted by these, as well as establishing a contrast of these contemporary productions of this field with social, cultural, and political backgrounds of Brazilian realities of the last 35 years, after the process of this country´s re-democratization.
In the very design of this course´s proposal, it is aimed at a universe of varied interests, covering a spectrum that goes from media studies, narrative formats, expressive genres in the art of humor, style in the art of drawing and caricature, among others. In this sense, the proposal integrates disciplinary domains of communication studies, literature, and art history, in a complementary and inseparable way.
Course Objectives:
· To examine the new figurations of graphic humor in contemporary Brazilian visual culture, departing from the analysis of the recent work of cartoonists working under Brazilian main newspaper Folha de São Paulo - in the topical aspects of its elaboration (in the abandonment of the more “direct” regimes of political satire), but also in the spheres of plastic expression and the textual strategies of the narrative organization of the episodes (aspects of seriality, thematic iteration and rhythmic modulation, among others);
To contrast the examination of these
characteristics of a “poetics of graphic humor” in contemporary Brazilian
visual culture with the historical frameworks of humor production, in the
political context of re-democratization in the country, in the last 35 years. I particularly evaluate
the cultural scenarios of graphic humor production in contemporary Brazil,
based on the variety of publishing market for humorous graphic art, considering
the different media and editorial resources, as well as the different genres of
its most current manifestation (such as editorial cartoons by newspapers and that of
the daily newspaper strips).
To establish an assessment of the problem of the production of textual meaning, in the art of comics and graphic humor, as a privileged field of evidence for an examination of the theoretical foundations of visual discursivity in general, in analytical perspectives originated from the encounter between semiotic-textual approaches to the image and the theoretical fortune of the sciences of art in general – and Art History, in particular; In such a context, I intend to outline the methodological imports of a “poetics of graphic humor” in the general background of cultural analysis and criticism.
To propose an approach to the phenomenon of narrative figuration in comics and graphic humor, departing from two dimensions of the functionality of drawing in a poetic perspective: 1) pictorial plasticity of drawing, as a basis for the perceptual experience of humorous depiction (specially in cases of caricature and cartoon drawing), and 2) myth-functional dimension of humorous drawing, through which the sense of a textual regency of pictorial materials is properly manifested (virtually in editorial cartooning; more effectively in the narrative mechanics of daily strips);
· To examine in further detail the functioning of this dual structure of graphic humor (plastic and narrative), in the specific context of the manifestations of humorous drawings, in the three levels of its manifestation, namely: 1) in the aspects of drawing and the hyperbolic plasticity of caricatural models, and the synthetic plasticity of cartooning; 2) in its most characteristic episodic structure, in the model of semantic or physical incongruity of the gag, departing from its burlesque modalities in the cinema of the early 20th Century; 3) in the serialized models for the episodic scansion of humorous eventfulness, based on the reiteration of sensorimotor accidents and their episodic resolutions;
· To investigate on the new incarnations of Brazilian graphic humor in contemporary times, departing from a triple source of its main aspects: 1) its thematic choices (the gradual departure from a more direct relationship with the agendas of the political world and an appreciation of everyday life and its surroundings), 2) narratives and episodic strategies (especially in the appreciation of an episodic structure endowed with lower levels of eventfulness and intrigue), and, 3) the poetics of humorous drawing (centered on a variety of cartoon stroke styles, as well as a closer approximation with reference universes of drawing, in the world of museum art and galleries).
Teaching Methods: The course will be almost entirely structured entirely upon the lecturers' expositions, whose supporting notes will be available to students at the end of each class for everyone to consult, on the course´s blog (https://mutationsoflaughter.blogspot.com/). For the good monitoring of classes, it is more than recommended that the reading of basic bibliographic items be up to date, before each thematic exposition.
Course Requirements and Grading:
20% of the final grade of the course will be awarded based on participation and engagement criteria, under various forms of measurement (attendance, punctuality, involvement in the classroom, initiative, attention to the exhibitions, answers to the questions proposed on the topics of the course during the semester, delivery of reading sheets, among others).
30% of the final grade will be awarded through partial assessments, in a series of short written texts, mainly directed upon topics of the course, in articulation with the student’s current research (the specific forms of this activities will be the subject of a detailed exposition, at the time of presentation of this program, at the beginning of the semester);
50% of the final grade of the course will be awarded to a final assemblage of these successive short texts ascribed during the semester, dealing with the units of the program and their articulations with the subjects of the student´s current research, at the end of the semester (the specific forms of this exam will be the object of a detailed exposition, at the time of the presentation of this program, at the beginning of the semester).
Schedule of Meetings and Topics:
Feb. 07: Course Overview and Introductions (First assignment of a draft for research)
Feb. 14: Film Projection (Laerte-se, dir. Lígia Barbosa and Eliana Brum, Netflix, 2017), followed by a discussion on general items of the course topic (no prior readings required)
Feb. 21: Questions of method in cultural analysis of graphic humor
Readings:
Foster, From Mafalda to Los Supermachos (chap. 2, “Principles of text production”),
Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (chap. 1. “From Caricature to Comic Strips”)
Merino, “Comics in Latin America”
Scorer, Latin American Comics Beyond the Page (chap. 1, “Latin Americn comics, beyond the page”).
Feb. 28: Canons of Graphic Humor: from politics to a poetics of laughter
Readings:
Cosse, “Mafalda: talisman of democracy…”
Crafton, Emile Cohl, Caricature, and Film (chap. 7, “Graphic humor and early cinema”)
Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (chap. 4. “Comic Strips as Culture”)
Mar. 07: Style and Narrative (I): cartoon and caricature
Readings:
Boillat, “L´Effet BD à l´ère du cinema em image de synthèse”
Gombrich, Art and Illusion (chap. 10, “The experiment of caricature”)
Picado, “Beyond the fixity of drawing”
Wölfflin, Principles of Art History (chap. 1, “Linear and painterly”)
Mar. 14: Spring recess (no classes)
Mar 21: Style and Narrative (II): eventfulness and incongruence
Readings:
Boillat, “Intrigue, Suspense and Sequentiality in Comic Strips”
Hühn, “Event and eventfulness”
Picado, Schneider and Teixeira, “Comics, Non-narrativity, Non-Eventfulness”
Raskin, Semantic Mechanisms of Humor (chap.4, “Semantic theory of humor”)
Mar.28: Graphic Humor and Newspaper Culture: the Brazilian case
Aragão, “Cartum, do Impresso à Internet”
Burkart, “De Caras y Caretas a Humor...”
Marques, “The opposition to Brazilian dictatorship abroad through cartoons…”
Santos, “O Brasil através das histórias em quadrinhos de humor”
Vergueiro, “O Humor Gráfico no Brasil...”
Apr. 04: From “Generation Circo” to the new cartoonists at Folha de São Paulo
Santos, “A renovação das histórias em quadrinhos brasileiras...”
Apr. 11: The Laerte Affair (1): Piratas do Tietê
Azevedo, “Dibujando com transgressión em Latinoamerica”
Apr. 18: Patriot´s Day
Apr. 25: The Laerte Affair (2): Diário do Minotauro and beyond
Carneiro, “O Corpo em Tiras”
Neto, Quadrinho como Labirinto (chap. 3, “Dançando: uma descrição interpretativa de O Manual do Minotauro”)
Picado, “Mutações do Riso”
May. 2: Final Remarks
REFERENCES:
ARAGÃO, Octavio Carvalho. “Cartum, do Impresso à Internet: narrativa sequencial e humor disjuntivo”. In: Revista USP, 88, 2010: pp. 112-121;
AZEVEDO, Adriana Pinto Fernandes de. “Dibujando com transgressión em Latinoamerica”, In: Anales de la IX Jornada de Sociologia, Facultad de Ciencias \Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2011: pp. 1-17;
BOILLAT, Alain. ““L´Effet BD à l´ère du cinema em image de synthèse: quando les adaptations filmique des comic books suggèrent la fixité de leur modele desiné”. In: Bande Dessiné et Adaptation: littérature, cinema, TV (Benoît Mitaine, David Roche, Isabelle Schmitt, eds.). Clermont Ferrand: Presse Universtaire Blaise Pascal, 2015: pp. 179-209.
____________, REVAZ, Françose. “Intrigue, Suspense and Sequentiality in Comic Strips: reading Little Sammy Sneeze”. In: Narrative Sequence in Contemporary Narratology (Raphaël Baroni and Françose Revaz, eds.), Columbus: Ohio University Press, 2016: pp. 107-129;
BURKART, Mara. “De Caras e Caretas a Humor: a imprensa de humor gráfico na Argentina do século XX”. In: Revista USP, 88, 2010: pp. 26-37;
CARNEIRO, Maria Clara da Silva Ramos. “O Corpo em Tiras: ficções e autoficções transgêneras nas tiras de Laerte Coutinho”, In: Revista Brasileira de Literatura Comparada, 23/44, 2021: pp. 62-77;
COSSE, Isabella. “Mafalda: talisman of democracy and icon of nostalgia for the 1960´s”. In: Comics and Memory in Latin America (Jorge Catalá Carrasco, Paulo Drinot, James Scorer, eds.), Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2017: pp. 86-107
CRAFTON, Donald. “Graphic humor and early cinema”. In: Emile Cohl, Caricature, and Film. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990: pp. 221-256;
FOSTER, David William. “Principles of text production”. In: From Mafalda to Los Supermachios: Latin American graphic humor as popular culture. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989: pp. 7-26;
GOMBRICH, E.H. Art and Illusion: a study in the psychology of pictorial representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959;
GORDON, Ian. Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (1890-1945). Washington: Smithsonian, 1998
HÜHN, Peter. “Event and eventfulness”. In: Handbook of Narratology (Peter Hühn, Jan Christophe Meister, John Pier, Wolf Schimd, eds.), Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014: pp. 159-178
MARQUES, Teresa Cristina Schneider. “The opposition to the Brazilian dictatorship abroad through cartoon and caricatures (1964-1979). In: História/Unisinos, 19 (3), 2015: pp. 358-367;
MERINO, Ana. “Comics in Latin America”. In: The Routledge Companion to Comics (Frank Bramlett, Aaron Meskin, Roy Cook, eds.). London: Routledge, 2017: pp. 70-78;
NETO, Raimundo Clemente Lima. Quadrinho como Labirinto: uma descrição interpretativa das tiras do blog Manual do Minotauro, sob a ótica da poética do imaginário, MA Thesis, Universidade de Brasília, 2014;
PICADO, Benjamim. “Beyond the Fixity of Drawing: aspectuality and narrative virtualities of depiction in caricature”. In: Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 7/4, 2016: pp. 334-347;
________________. “Mutações do Riso: novas figurações da comicidade nas tirinhas diárias”. In: Discursos Fotográficos, 11 (19), 2015: pp. 35-57;
________________. TEIXEIRA, João, SCHNEIDER, Greice. “Comics, Non-Narrativity, Non-Eventfulness: three examples from Brasil”. In: Closure, 8, 2021: pp. 99-112;
RASKIN, Victor. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor, Dordrech: D.Deidl, 1984;
SANTOS, Roberto Elísio dos. “A renovação das histórias em quadrinhos nas publicações alternativas brasileiras na década de 1980”. In: Comunicação e Inovação, 12, 2011: pp. 24-34;
______________________. “O Brasil através das histórias em quadrinhos de humor”. In: Cuaderno del Centro de Estudios em Diseño y Communicación, 74, 2019: pp. 153-167;
SCORER, James (org.). Latin American Comics Beyond the Page. London: UCL, 2020
VERGUEIRO, Valdomiro. “O Humor Gráfico no Brasil pela Obra de Três Artistas: Angelo Agostini, J. Carlos e Henfil”. In: Revista USP, 88, 2010: pp. 38-49;
WÖLFFLIN, Heinrich. Principles of Art History, New York: Dover, s/d.
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