Friday, October 18, 2013

Prompts on Jimmy Corrigan & Marcuse

Prompt 1:  Images in Jimmy Corrigan

Do a close reading/viewing of an image, or brief series of images in Jimmy Corrigan. This means that you should select a single image (probably in a single frame or short sequence of frames, although it might be a repeating image), examine it as closely as you can, and explain in detail how it can help us understand either the book as a whole, or a particular section of it. For instance - you could analyze the significance of the details of Jimmy’s apartment as he works up his courage to call Peggy, or you could analyze the details of the appearance of the “dream-robot.”

Prompt 2:  The Instructions

Pick some part of the “general instructions” on the inside cover of Jimmy Corrigan, and use those instructions (which are simultaneously serious and funny, very complicated and silly - this isn’t easy material) to explain how we ought to read some section of the book (as short as an image, or as long as a few pages). Note that the instructions appear in images as well as in words.

Prompt 3:  Marcuse and Jimmy Corrigan

Use Marcuse, including specifics, to analyze Jimmy Corrigan.  Alternatively, you may analyze Jimmy Corrigan in relationship with one other work of “popular culture” (I am using the term loosely, not precisely). You should, as usual, have a specific argument, in this case at least inspired by Marcuse (if you disagree in some fundamental way with Marcuse, this essay might help explain why).  The most obvious question you might begin with is:  “does my chosen work engage in, or try to engage in, the Great Refusal”?

Whatever your exact approach, it is critical that you engage with the “text” of Jimmy Corrigan on a visual level - analysis of the written text alone, to the exclusive of the visual elements, is not sufficient.

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