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ECL 568 | LATAM 580 | MALAS 600A | SPRING 2024
The Sensual Labyrinth
Chicanx Comix: Community, Storytelling, and Social Justice
#thesensuallabyrinth24
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11-12:15 in Hepner Hall 150
Professor William "Memo" Nericcio

A dropcap
                        letter "M" -- first letter of the
                        first word here, MOREore and more these days, the literary is being besieged by the visual. Where, heretofore, literature was known and valued as words on the page, now, in the 21st century, readers must supplement their semantic, hermeneutic understanding with semiotic, pictorial understandings as well. This is as true in the mainstream (Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions; Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; Humberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana) as it is from emergent literary/semiotic talents (Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez's Love and Rockets; Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings).

Nowhere has the explosion of works occurred more than in the world of comics -- graphic novels, sequential art, etc. And so it is that the canons of both literary studies and ethnic studies must expand to accomodate this growing medium. In the United States, it has been in the comic book talents of Americans of Mexican descent (Mexican-Americans, Chicanas/os/x) that has most witnessed this Renaissance. From the early works of Gus Arriola (Gordo), to the aforementioned Los Bros Hernandez, to Herblock award-winning political cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, to the feminista-inspired universe of Kayden Phoenix, comic book history in the United States has exploded. This class will survey this 20th and 21st century evolution focusing on the works, artists, communities, and movements associated with these brilliant artists and writers.

But comics will be only the beginning of our obsessions with all things visual arts, all things Chicano/a/x, as we will also dabble in books and movies and photography. Back in the day, pre-instagram, we could live with Descartes credo: "I think, therefore I am" -- but in today's universe, immersed in AI, dodging digital surveillance (thx Zuckerberg, gracias Bezos, ya basta Musk) it is more "I see, therefore I am" or better still, "See me, lest I not exist at all." Selfie culture, to be sure, but something that Chicanos/as/xers have been keen on since Jose Guadalupe Posada's broadsheets inspired Mexican American civil rights activists to forge their own semiotic brand, their own visual arts dasein.

MORE COMING SOON! 

Note --> Trigger warning appears below!

<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"><font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">English 568 Chicanx Comix Proposal Syllabus</font></font>


Required Texts
(In Progress/Under Construction)




Our Spring 2024 Lineup of Required Books

THE BOOKS BELOW DO NOT APPEAR IN THE ORDER WE WILL BE READING THEM IN CLASS DURING THE SEMESTER OWING TO COMPLICATIONS WITH THE BOOKSTORE ON CAMPUS

ALSO --> do note that the bookstore has been awful about ordering on time so last minute adjustments are to be expected!


Click each cover below the Aztec Shops Link to see the correct print edition of all the books we are studying together this semester!

Should you buy or rent print editions
or digital editions -- the University may well recommend that you go the digital route, but I recommend coming to class with a physical copy of the book we are discussing. Why? So we can literally be "on the same page" during discussions.

What about pirated pdfs? In the digital age, anything goes, but pirated pdfs mean the artists/writers go unrewarded for their intellectual labor.


Bottom line?
You
are welcome to pursue what you see fit, but, despite the expense, nothing beats working with the best, printed edition of the book.

Last question: should you rent or buy? That is up to you! But
remember, your personal bookshelf is like a mirror of the journey of your psyche--a snapshot of the evolution of your imagination.


Empty bookshelf?  =  Erased  intellectual legacy

SDSU Aztec Shops Campus Bookstore Link




Newspaper Comics
Gus Arriola
Gordo

Memoir/Photography
NORMA ELIA CANTÚ
Canícula




Essay/Memoir/More
Myriam Gurba
Creep

Graphic Memoir/Journalism
Frederick Aldama
& Oscar Garza
Through Fences



Teatro/Playwrighting
Oliver Mayer
The Hurt Business

Cultural Studies / Musicology
Richard T. Rodriguez
A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad




Cultural Studies / Semiotics / Comix
Frederick Luis Aldama
Latinx Comic Book Storytelling

History / Comix
Ilan Stavans and Lalo Alcaraz
LATINO USA : CARTOON HISTORY



Comix
Gilbert Hernandez
HUMAN DIASTROPHISM

Theatre
Oliver Mayer
The Hurt Business



Comix
Jaime Hernandez
IS THIS HOW YOU SEE ME

Cultural Studies
Memo Nericcio
AUTOPSY OF A RAT




Seminar Logistics

How to succeed in our #sensualabyrinths24 adventura!?

s we navigate this crazy experiment of a class, the first thing you have to determine is who you are and where you are in your own personal academic adventure. Are you a MALAS graduate student or a graduate student from another program taking this as a MALAS 600A seminar!? That will mean one thing. Or, alternatively, are you an undergraduate or graduate student taking this class for LATAM 580 or ECL 568 credit? That will mean another. Let me explain ...

As an upper-division or graduate literature and cultural studies class we are going to be serious! But not serious in the "heart-attack" sense of "serious"; more like serious in the "great, now i have to be accountable for my intellectual range, preparation, imagination, and curiosity" sense.

So my expectation is that you will enter each seminar session having carefully completed the assigned reading for a given day -- after all, if you do not intend to keep up with the readings, why be part of the adventure?

Maybe as a freshman or a sophomore, "doing the reading" would have been enough. I would like to ask a little more of thee! 

My desire is that you will come to each class on Tuesday and Thursday having both prepared the material by doing the reading, but that you will also have surveyed recent reviews on said work, look up if there is any sexy research on the work or in the field of said work, and, lastly, even, preparing questions (both discussion questions and close-reading-related questions) to share with your professor and your fellow students.

When we are undergraduates, it is easy, perhaps, to sit in the back of the room and listen. And while you can still get away with this as a graduate student or advanced English or Comparative Literature major, you must also consider that said silence does your colleagues a disservice. So as we move toward the first class, promise me (and promise yourself) that you will use the time we have together to share the amazing contours of your imagination with our gang of literature and interdisciplinary studies undergraduates and graduate students.

Graduate Seminar Presentations  (or "you are the professor") -- only for graduate students*

Graduate Student presentations are not mandatory for this class--however, if you spy an upcoming work on the reading list and you want to deliver a 20 minute presentation that will benefit your development as a scholar, write me at bnericci@sdsu.edu and give me a heads-up about your wishes! Yes, this will bless you with "extra-credit" which MAY be of use when it comes time to determine your grade. *undergraduates thinking about applying to graduate school can volunteer as well to give an in-class presentation


Mid-Term and Final

There will be two exams during the course of the semester -- a midterm and a final exam. You will also have the opportunity to write a final paper in lieu of the final exam. More information on this to follow.

Seminar Paper
(Optional for both graduate students and undergraduates).

It is expected that you will produce an amazing piece of rhetorical excellence in the course of the semester -- a seminar paper or essay. To that end, you will submit to me by noon, Friday, May 3, 2023, via email to bnericci@sdsu.edu, a well-researched, nicely crafted, exquisitely-honed critical essay anywhere from 15 to 22 pages. The essay should be typed, double-spaced, and carefully proofread.

What will this beautiful essay be about? That's the fun part! Let us first consider the obvious: you are an advanced undergraduate or graduate student.

What does that mean? It means that you are a scholarly apprentice of sorts. You are one in a long line of individuals who aspire to scholarship--someone who aims to produce an exegesis of the first order.  Like it or not, one of the things that will determine whether or not you have what it takes to get past the gates at the ivory tower is your writing. It used to be that writing for literary journals was an extended exercise in pain and self-abuse. But the field is changing and so are its journals. That is the easy part.

How will you go about imagining this essay? Please have your essay derive or be based in large part on a text, author, director, theme, genre which is part of the required material for our class; moreover, I am also open to you conceiving of your submission to me as a draft chapter from your master's thesis, or a possible submission to critical journal.

Footnote vs. endnote? MLA style vs. Chicago style vs. APA style?

These controversies have been solved for you in advance. As part of your assignment, I want you to immerse yourself in the variety of journals now publishing essays in , literature, film studies, cultural studies, comparative literature and contemporary studies in comparative cultures. You may complete this immersion here at SDSU's Love library, at USD, or UCSD.

Some pretty good journals include: american literature, boundary 2, critical inquiry, social text, pmla, south atlantic quarterly, camera obscura and cinema journal.

Think of your essay, then, as an exercise in role-playing--any question you might have about format, tone, styles, footnoting tactics and the like will be answered by the editorial policy of the journal you select as your guide. Do please submit with your seminar essay, a copy of one essay from the journal you have selected that represents to you the BEST that journal has to offer. Also, if you can find it, include a xerox of the page in the journal where they tell prosepective contributors how to format their submissions.

Do note that our library has great, full-text, online journal archives like project muse and jstor--if you are off campus, you may have to log-in through the SDSU Libweb server reference index to access these invaluable index. If you have any question as to the appropriateness of a journal just give me a call or pull me aside and ask me.

What can you write on? Well, just about anything. I imagine the best exercise will be to throw all your books and notes on a table, think about what are some of the provocative issues that have stayed with you during the term and then head off to the library and those endless stacks of scholarly journals. By the time you’ve paged through all those journals and get back to your books and notes, you’ll have a firmer grasp on the goals of your analytical adventure. You’ll also probably have a headache -- welcome to academe.

Seminar Paper Prompts


Seminar Paper Prompts

I don't usually give out essay prompts to graduate students--the reason for that is simple: graduate students should be pursuing their own line of research, building on the required readings for the class, but also, then, voraciously researching hunches/ideas that appeal to THEIR intellectual sensibility. However, I realize that not all graduate students in an MA program are ready for that level of engagement, so I will provide here, for your entertainment and delight, a short list of seminar paper prompts:

1.
a. Select a journal you adore and want to imagine yourself published in--use it as an editorial template of sorts to guide the completion of your essay.
b. Author an original piece of scholarship that speaks to some idea that connects two or three of the works we have read this semester with a couple of recent scholarly essays on comix/graphic narrative in the 20th and/or 21st century.

2.

a.
Select a journal you adore and want to imagine yourself published in--use it as an editorial template of sorts to guide the completion of your essay.
b.
Redefine the term "sensual labyrinth" using three works we have experienced this semester.

3.

a. Select a journal you adore and want to imagine yourself published in--use it as an editorial template of sorts to guide the completion of your essay.
b.
To be Chicanx or Latinx in the 20th century would seem NOT the easiest road to travel. Using two or three works we have examined during the semester, describe the relationship between art and adversity in Chicanx comix

4.

a. Select a journal you adore and want to imagine yourself published in--use it as an editorial template of sorts to guide the completion of your essay. b. Literary Criticism / Film Criticism--> Locate scholarly articles on any two the artists / writers we have experienced this semester. Try to find articles that you are decidedly at odds with or that come up short in ways you find annoying. Write an essay that  directly challenges the findings of these two scholars; make sure to incorporate your own thesis in your essay.

5.

a. Select a journal you adore and want to imagine yourself published in--use it as an editorial template of sorts to guide the completion of your essay.
b. 
Is there a shared sexual dimension or critique/exploration of gender that connects any three works we have or will read this semester? Explore these three authors / directors / artists evolving notions of sexuality as they unfold with a nuanced consideration of the relationship between worlds sexual and worlds of comics.

6.

a. Select a journal you adore and want to imagine yourself published in--use it as an editorial template of sorts to guide the completion of your essay.
b. 
Can a Photograph talk to a Novel, an image converse with a short story or essay? Compose an essay that contrasts/compares a text this semester that was written with one that is composed of pictures. Ultimately your essay is a meditation on the semantic and the semiotic conceived simultaneously.  The thematic focus? That is up to you.  

7.
a. Select a journal you adore and want to imagine yourself published in--use it as an editorial template of sorts to guide the completion of your essay. 
b. Go to this page from a class I taught back in the day. Take one of the essay prompts and warp it, adapt it, combine it, deconstruct it in such a way that it enables you to write about ideas associated with two or three of the works we read this semester.

8. Roll you own. Make up your own thesis that incorporates two or more works from our required reading this term.


Grading Information  

In-class free writes / writing challenges, class participation / attendance, social media-postings, etc.     --> 33%
 
MidTerm                                                          --> 33%

Final
                                                               --> 33%

OR

Seminar Essay Option    
                              --> 66%
 
Chutzpah, ganas, will, & drive                      --> 1%


Office Hours

My office hours are on Tuesday afternoons from 12:30pm to 3:00pm, after our seminar, and by appointment, in Arts and Letters 273 (though you may find me in AL 283 from time to time)
.

Do please make the time during the course of the semester to come on out and  introduce yourself and be a real, living, breathing, person -- the social dimension of intellectual life is
key to your development as a graduate student and, believe it or not, it will make it easier for you to emerge as a dynamic agent of our seminar. My phone number here at SDSU is  619.594.1524, but the best way to make sure you get hold of me is email: 

bnericci@sdsu.edu

My office is pretty easy to find, it's at the end of the hall to your left after you enter the Arts and Letters building 2nd floor, ground-level entrance.  Click the image opposite  to see what awaits you!



More Stuff

RULE: 1 BOOKS_BOOKS_BOOKS

BUY THE BOOKS AND READ THEM--DON'T COME TO SEMINAR WITHOUT YOUR BOOK! Though we very much adore living in the 21st century, we will, for the most part use ANALOG, printed books in this class. So check out each one and buy them now!

RULE 2: READ_READ_READ!

When you enter this room for class you will have completed the reading that appears on the day-to-day class calendar, aka the Day to Day Calendar!  Please note the word "finished" (not "started," not "skimmed," not "glanced," and most decidedly NOT "I read the Cliffs/Sparks Notes and a review of the damned thing online!"). Coming to a university literature/film/cultural studies class without doing the reading is like a gardener trying to raise roses without getting her/his hands filthy with shit, a surgeon trying to operate without a scalpel, a fireman without her/his ax, a prostitute without ..., ... er, ... well, I better stop there -- you get the gist of it.

RULE 3: PUT THE MONSTERS TO SLEEP!

Ok, the following Passport Rule 3 was also written pre-COVID ... I am leaving it here for the gags, image and link!

Your laptop will be asleep IN YOUR BAGS during class--or, better yet, resting in your dorm room or apartment.

Have you noticed how anytime a student uses a laptop in an auditorium there is a "cone of distraction" alongside and behind the student using a computer?

This is usually due to said student surfing the web via wi-fi perusing erotic delights or god knows what. I was recently at a cool (ok, it was slightly boring, I confess) lecture by a noted writer--as I tried to listen to her, in front of me, a diverted student (attending the lecture, no doubt, for extra-credit) was perusing sites like these (nsfw or school). So, laptops are GREAT for entering your notes AFTER class, but they will not be allowed in our lecture hall. If you have an issue with this, schedule a meeting with me during office hours to chat the first week of class.

PASSPORT RULE 4 PARALYZE
THE SMARTPHONE!

Your beloved magnificent iPhone, your cherished Galaxy, your fetishized Pixel, or even your primordial pager will be off, off, OFF during class meetings; if for some reason you are expecting an emergency call, set it on VIBRATE (for privacy, pleasure, or both!) and sit in the back near an exit after letting me know in advance before class that you are expecting an emergency phone-call. Cellphones KILL collective spaces of learning with their ill-timed, annoying clattering rings, bongs, squeaks, chirps, and themes.

Yes, the trauma of that delayed text, yes, the horror of that missed hook-up call, yes, the loss of the buzz of that random Tinder swipe will no doubt doom you to years and years on an psychoanalyst's couch, but we, the rest of us, will gain some silence, a kind of sanctuary without which ideas wither on the vine.

RULE 5 Charlie-Delta_Thief

PLAGIARISM is for cads, thieves, and idiots who desire an "F" for the class. Plagiarism comes from the Latin word, "plagiarius" which means kidnapper, plunderer, or (get this!) thief--not a GOOD thing.

In the university, plagiarism refers to the art and crime of presenting other people's work under your own signature, aka cutting and pasting copied crap from Wikipedia--definitely a BAD thing. While your professor is forbidden by CSU/SDSU code from tattooing the word LOSER on the foreheads of guilty students, he can promise that felonious students will be remanded to the state-authorized SDSU executioners.  Read THIS as well--SDSU is SERIOUS about this shit, so don't take any chances!  Rely on your own singular mind and imagination!




DAY TO DAY CALENDAR
Thursday, January 18, 2024


It is the first day of class and all is in question (but, luckily, not all is in shambles). All is in question as your Professors, Lecturers, and Librarians (along with the SDSU Teamsters union) will be going out on strike next week. Which means that our classes on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 and Thursday, January 25, 2024, will likely be cancelled. If you have any questions about what is at stake and why we are striking, please read this page carefully -- Do also consider joining us on the picket line as student/faculty solidarity will be key as we try to fight tuition hikes and low-ball raise offers to faculty. We will also talk about this epic moment in higher education labor history in class today.

WHICH YES WILL BE HELD!

Assignment --> For class today, please read the blogposting and GORDO comix archived here written by yours truly and focused on Mexican American comix pioneer Gus Arriola.





Tuesday, January 23, 2024
No class -- SDSU Faculty on Strike



Thursday, January 25, 2024
No class -- SDSU Faculty on Strike



Tuesday, January 30, 2024

We are back in class in our own personal labyrinth, Hepner Hall 150, aka The Sensual Sanctuary. In class today we will be treated to a kind of historical whiplash as we leap to and fro from the work of Gus Arriola to that of Gilbert Hernandez, two remarkable Mexican American Californians (Arriola by way of Arizona) whose indelible contributions to Chicanx Comix need to be recognized. *Read this selection from Robert C. Harvey's book on Arriola, The Accidental Ambassador, along with as many of these Arriola comic strips as you care to peruse. For Gilbert's work read this brief piece on micro-epic "Errata Stigmata" as well as his two-part novella, "An American in Palomar." If you are new to the world of comics try to give yourself time to read each story twice -- the first time through read word and image getting the feel and vibe of each tale or story. The second time through, only "read" the pictures. With comics, sometimes word and image collude; and sometimes, they clash.

*You must be logged into your SDSU gmail account in order to see/download this particular excerpt.


Thursday, February 1, 2024

It's early in the semester, but it's time to immerse ourselves in the mix of Chicanx, Latinx, and more in Frederick Luis Aldama's Latinx Comic Book Storytelling. Aldama's rolodex is filled with the crème de la crème of cartoonists and writers remaking the world of graphic narrative and sequential art. Read to page 51 in Aldama's almanac -- if you have time, page here and there through the rest of the volume to try and identify a current artist whose work you want to look up and learn more about!






Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Finish reading Aldama's catalogue of Latinx wonders -- any 15 entries. Pick ONE artist that really catches your eye and find a work online by them. Bring to class a printed panel from that artist's work and be prepared to write and share something about them!
Thursday, February 8, 2024



Read the first half of Stavans and Alcaraz's LATINO U.S.A.! Surprise! Lalo will be hanging with us in class and after with a presentation and lecture! Let the Desmadres ensue!





Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Finish Reading LATINO U.S.A.


Thursday, February 15, 2024

Read the first third of Myriam Gurba's Creep!



Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Over the weekend, finish reading Myriam Gurba's Creep! In class last Thursday we considered and enumerated various genres of writing, motifs, themes, and more in the first 100 pages or so of Gurba's collection of essays. For class today, come to class ready to talk about a particular essay your focused on and what you would write about it if asked to compose an essay. If you can, come to class with a printout with the working title of that essay to share with me and the class.




Thursday, February 22, 2024

Professor Ricky Rodriguez from UCR's English Department is in the House as we open our readings
of his recent music studies/cultural studies classic A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad.  Find out more about his epic cool Chicanx work here. Come to class today having read to page 84 in 'Kiss -- to the end of Chapter 3.

Professor Rodriguez's talk will be entitled "Crossing the Transatlantic Border: From Chicanx Studies to Cultural Studies and Back Again."  

Richard T. Rodríguez is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics (Duke University Press, 2009), which won the 2011 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Book Award, and most recently, A Kiss across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad (Duke University Press, 2022), which was named by Rolling Stone as one of The Best Music Books of 2022. He is currently finishing a book of poems titled Exemplars and Accomplices and a book on Latino sexuality and labor titled The Desirable Conduit.





Tuesday, February 27, 2024

We continue our readings from A Kiss Across the Ocean. Enter our seminar room having completed Profe Rodriguez's ode to cultural studies, televisual influence, and the Chicanx dasein. As you read, come to class ready to share about a book you might write about your own musical influences -- what are the songs/bands you adore that actually creep across boundaries and impact the way you think and write.


Thursday, February 29, 2024


From music videos, music, performance and the Chicano cultural critic's psyche, we move to Norma Cantu's CANICULA -- here we are faced with a Chicana woman's psyche processed through a kaleidoscope of memory, photography, memoir and more. Read the first 90 pages or so from Cantú's singular narrative.




Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Epic amazingness as Katherine Steelman, a UCSD Doctoral Student and lecturer in Chicana/o/x Studies here at SDSU invades our classroom with an amazing presentation:

Colonization, Zombies, and Chicanx Comics

Required Readings for the lecture:

Reading ONE
                              Reading TWO     

The first cannibalistic zombie to terrorize U.S. horror fans came from the mind of Cuban-American director George A. Romero who dislocated the zombie myth from its origins as a Haitian Vodou myth and allegory for slavery. Since Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was released in 1968, the contagious, flesh-eating zombie has been written about as an allegory for contemporary social anxieties including consumerism, migration and climate change. Some argue that by dislocating the zombie from its origins in Haiti, Romero removed the figure from its connection to Blackness and to chattel slavery. Javier Hernandez’s series El Muerto: The Aztec Zombie, reveals that the cannibalistic zombie, in a Chicanx context, is operating through a similar framework to the Haitian zombie myth as an allegory for the dehumanization of indigenous Latin Americans under settler colonialism. Like recent Haitian contributions to the zombie genre, Hernandez’s zombie is not a mindless, monstrous drone, but a complex and misunderstood hero. Howard Zinn argues that the dominant historical narrative of the colonization of the Americas maintains that the destruction of indigenous cultures and peoples in the region was a necessary sacrifice in the name of human progress. This takes on a meaning beyond that which Zinn intended when considered alongside the history of racial formation of the Aztecs, who were cast outside the category of human for practicing human sacrifice and ceremonial cannibalism. It is important to note here that the indigenous people of Haiti, the Taino, were also accused of cannibalism as part of a settler-colonial racial project. In Hernandez’s comic, Diego de la Muerte, a Chicano from Whitter, is sacrificed by the Gods and returns, not as a subhuman villain, but as a superhuman hero. Drawing on scholarship about the formation of race in the colonial Americas, as well as recent work on race and horror, we will discuss the relationship between the use of the  Haitian zombie myth as a horror trope, Haitian zombie stories that cast zombies as heroes, and Hernandez’s comic which employs the zombie myth to comment on the racialization of indigenous Mexican spirituality.

Bio: Dr. Katherine Steelman is a lecturer in Chicana/Chicano Studies and Women's and Gender Studies at SDSU She earned a B.A in  English at University of California, Riverside, and an M.A. English at Cal State Long Beach, and a PhD in Ethnic Studies at UCSD. Broadly, her work examines how sexually non-normative spaces are socially and materially constructed in Tijuana, BC, MX. She takes up US cultural production, as well as the Tijuanense response to the US's narrative of the city and its cuir communities. This work juxtaposes critical analyses of cultural texts with ethnographic interviews. Currently, she is working on a project that engages cultural representations of Haiti in the US and Mexico, as well as collaborative ethnographic work with Haitian migrants in Tijuana.


Thursday, March 7, 2024 

Stop the presses! We are rapt with attention as guest lecturer Nishi Khodaria (Grad Program, ECL) is in the house for a great lecture on Gloría Anzaldúa ...


Writing as a Border Woman: Pursuing the Path of the Red and Black Ink

NISHI KHODARIA

 
Taking a chapter from one of the pioneering works in postcolonial, feminist studies, Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, published in 1987, continues to hold relevance to present times, especially in line with foregrounding the violence of growing up in a borderland, of living in a state of psychic unrest. Most poignantly, as we seek to pursue the path of the red and black ink, centralizing what it means to write as a border woman? As a mestiza? Of living in a space of contradictions, a conflict, a pervasive shift in the identity generated by the border divide, it is an exploration akin to carving bone, one’s face, heart, a constant remaking in writing, of learning to live with the borderland, the writer thus ceases to be a singular persona, manifesting into a shape-changer, a nahual. Such is the path we descend on for Thursday’s class, as we pursue Anzaldúa’s “The Path of Red and Black Ink,” set amidst the backdrop of Borderlands, touted as her semi-autobiographical work, the present chapter examines the aspect of cultural ambiguity within the queer, Chicana experience, from a postcolonial feminist lens, as we seek to further examine the figure of the mestiza within the borderland, stepping into the path of the mestiza consciousness, a path moving from violence to healing, as argued by Anzaldúa, one that seeks to heal the split between predominantly Western, White, straitjacketed, binary identities of white and colored, male and female and a hegemonically differentiated “us” and “them.” Come having prepared to challenge straightjacketed definitions of identity, as we sit in ambiguity, performing Anzaldúa’s the path of red and black ink, venir, join the ritual.

Required reading here!

Bio: Nishi Khodaria is an intersectional, Feminist scholar working at the intersections of gender, race and postcolonial women’s writings. Her research focuses on South Asian women’s literature, centering a transnational feminist study of the partition literature, or simply put, what it means to live in a constant state of back and forth, on the border. Khodaria is presently completing her graduate degree in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, SDSU.
Writing as a Border Wo



Tuesday, March 12, 2024


Walk into our labyrinth, Hepner Hall 150, having finished your reading of Norma Cantú's CANÍCULA. Bring a passage -- no more than 5 or 6 sentences -- that you are ready to apply your hermeneutic superpowers on in an in-class writing challenge to open the class.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

It's Televisual Thursday as we screen the epic and wildly acclaimed first episode of WEDNESDAY, starring Jenna Ortega:

Wednesday Season 1, Episode 1, "Wednesday's Child Is Full Of Woe"

The facts:  Writers Charles Addams, Alfred Gough, & Miles Millar; Stars Jenna Ortega, Gwendoline Christie, & Riki Lindhome;
Episode aired Nov 23, 2022; TV-14; 57 minutes.

Please get to class on time -- the sooner we start it the more time we will have for discussion.

After class, we will have an informal meeting discussion/gathering on the Eureka patio. First refreshment of the afternoon on MALAS!



Tuesday, March 19, 2024



Today you enter our sensual labyrinth of intellectual adventures, Hepner Hall 150, the "house that smells of mota" having devoured the paired comic book geniuses of
Frederick Aldama & Oscar Garza and their recent work THROUGH FENCES! Come to class having a specific story you want to introduce to your fellow seminarians -- in your brief presentation, you will NOT summarize the story; rather, you will speak of elements you encountered in the narrative you believe merit deeper inquiry.


Thursday, March 21, 2024

Frederick Luis Aldama is IN THE HOUSE for a lecture on Latinx comix, critical approaches to comix studies y mucho mas more!

click to enlarge




Tuesday, March 26, 2024



We enter the room ready for a break from visual culture -- now we sojourn to Chicanx teatro and the great works of USC Professor Oliver Mayer. Enter our labyrinth of a classroom having read YOUNG VALIANT, Mayer's bildungsroman reverie to simpler days, easier times.



But of course, in teatro, in theatre, what appears simple on the surface masks a subterranean universe of intrigue and more. Don't be surprised in Sigmund Freud makes a cameo!  Also read as much of the support materials in the book as you can get to -- the pictures, especially, in this illustrated special collection from SDSU Press, should augment your reading.

Thursday, March 28, 2024


In class MidTerm




Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Spring Break
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Spring Break



Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Read WUNDERSTEIN Part 1 and Part 2 before class.



The class will open with a 25-minute talk/discussion by Dr. Carlos Kelly on borders, co-creation, and rewriting narratives -- from there the class will evolve into an artists's workshop of sorts as Dr. Kelly  introduces his "homies" Adrian Carillo (Artist) and Chris Bengtsson (Writer). Carlos will moderate a Q&A with them, and then students can join the Q&A, and we'll just have a larger discussion after that.





Adrian Carrillo
is an illustrator and story artist dedicated to honing his craft. During the day, he works with non-profits, providing support for migrant folks entering the US. He works on his passions at night, such as making comic books and storyboards.

Christopher Bengtsson holds a BA in Journalism and is passionate about storytelling in all of its forms. He is a father, avid comic book reader, painter, musician, and dungeon master. He works at an interpreting agency in the daytime, and at night, he writes comics and fiction."





Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Extra class -- not a course requirement but certainly a life requirement!

In-Person Event— Wednesday,  April 10, 2024, at 7 p.m. in Love Library, Room 430: Award-winning Author and Artist, Myriam Gurba

Myriam Gurba will read from her most recent book, Creep: Accusations and Confessions. Gurba has been described as “the most fearless writer in America.” (This event is cosponsored by the MALAS Program and the Instructionally Related Activities Fund.)

Myriam Gurba is a writer and artist. She is the author of the essay collection, Creep, the true crime memoir Mean, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. O, The Oprah Magazine, ranked Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Paris ReviewTime, and 4Columns. She has shown art in galleries, museums, and community centers. She lives in Pasadena, California.





Thursday, April 11, 2024

Dr. Carlos Kelly on Latiné and the world of video games!


Today's lecture includes a presentation on Latinés in video games; an overview of Ready Player Juan; an analysis of Uncharted and Tomb Raider; current work; and the future of video games. We can have a general discussion and then Q&A. Your link to the introduction and first chapter of Dr. Kelly's outstanding book live here.

Dr. Carlos Gabriel Kelly González (known to students as Profe) specializes in US Latine media studies and critical game studies. He is an emerging scholar and one of the few Latine voices working to grow the field of video game studies through US Latine perspectives. He works to infuse Latinx ways of seeing into video game studies through borderland perspectives and lived/embodied experience. Carlos earned his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University and is on a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Latinx Arts, Literatures, Cultures, or Religions at the Humanities Research Center at Rice University. He will join his colleagues in the English department at Kennesaw State University as an Assistant Professor in Fall 24. His book Ready Player Juan: Latinx Masculinities and Stereotypes in Video Games is the first book to deploy US Latinx studies (via embodied border and performance theory) to interrogate AAA action-adventure video games. Currently, Carlos is thrilled to be co-editing the first-ever collection of Latinx video game studies, Coded Latinx: Latinx Gaming and Game Studies in North America, with Dr. Regina Marie Mills. In addition to his research, Carlos is also a published performance poet with his 2019 debut collection, Wounds Fragments Derelict, published with 2Leaf Press.





Tuesday, April 16, 2024

We are ready for this -- a masterwork by Xaime, aka Jaime Hernandez, and, in a way the semester has prepared us to experience this piece at a higher level or, to extend our guiding metaphor, to probe more deeply the subterranean nuances of this semiotic/semantic opus.

IS THIS HOW YOU SEE ME returns us to a world familiar to some of us and new to others. However, novices and comix addicts alike will be moved by Xaime's comic book novella.

Bring to class a print out of a panel from the beginning of the work and a panel from towards the end which, in your view, resonate or interract with each other. Be prepared to write about these two panels in class.

Thursday, April 18, 2024

No class today! Catch up on your reading!




Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Update: I am happy to share that the majority of you who wrote in back to me regarding bumping Gilbert's masterpiece, HUMAN DIASTROPHISM, from the required book list, are OK with this late shift. Thx for your flexibility.


We walk into class today having thrilled to the complexity and intoxicating semantic and semiotic magic of Gilbert Hernandez's FRIDA, a biographical comix meditation on the work and life of Mexican oil painting icon Frida Kahlo. Read the illustrated biography here before entering our sensual labyrinth, HH 150, today. Also read my chapter on Gilbert and Frida from Tex[t]-Mex, or, if you have not purchased the book (which is totally ok!), read it here, free.

The first part of class will be taken up with screening Carla Gutiérrez's new documentary entitled FRIDA. Read a recent story on it here and an interview with the documentarian here.

I was floored the first time I screened the documentary, available via Amazon Prime here. A blend of traditional documentary, animation, CGI, and more, Gutiérrez's opus unfolds as a visualization of Kahlo's artistry and a subtle and suggestive meditation on the connection between art and life.

We may all feel we know Friday, so saturated is popular culture with her visage, with reproductions of her art. Happily, Gutiérrez refreshes our world view, allowing us to encounter Kahlo in a new light--moving, tragic, funny, sexy, and more.



Thursday, April 25, 2024


We finish screening FRIDA in class today and continue our discussion of the overlaps between Carla Gutiérrez and Gilbert Hernandez's projects. Consider the benefits and drawbacks to telling Friday's story via comics and via documentary film.




Tuesday, April 30, 2024



We began the semester watching cartoons and we end it the same way! As we brace for the final in two days we will watch cartoons -- Speedy Gonzalez cartoons, to be exact. Also enter the room having read my Speedy chapter from Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America. If you don't want to buy the book, find a free version of my Speedy piece here.
Thursday, May 2, 2024

Last Day of Class -- In class Final Exam.




the Letter "T" used as
                  a dropcaphis is a university-level course in comics, literature, film, art, and the internet--as it is thematically focused on issues of representation, subjectivity, psychology, and sexuality, it should not come as a shock that students in the class may, from time to time, encounter characters, ideas, situations, images, language, and scenarios that make them uneasy.

WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSITY!  The antithesis of a place of worship, the flipside of a space dedicated to faith and belief, the university is a site of questioning--a sacred space of critical thinking, skepticism, cynicism and irony. So open your eyes, jump-start your mind, and prepare to enter the choppy corridors of the always already evolving world of comics and history.

Cool Sensual Labyrinch wallpaper by Danist Soh on Unsplash