AP/ANTH 2040 3.00 Graphi Anthropology: Sketched, Comics and Graphic Novels
Course Offering Winter 2027
This course introduces students to graphic anthropology, defined as the use of visual techniques in the practice of anthropology at any stage of the research process: when conducting ethnographic fieldwork, when analyzing data, and when disseminating anthropological knowledge. This course will draw on graphic ethnographies and traditional text-based sources to cover key aspects of theory and methods in anthropology and to explore in-depth several current topical areas in Anthropology. The course involves creative, hands-on components.
In this course students will have the opportunity to approach foundational topics in anthropology that may be familiar from introductory anthropology courses and learn about new topics and issues in the contemporary world while observing and reflecting on how graphic treatments of the steps of anthropological inquiry and representation can tell stories and communicate meaning.
This course takes a unique pedagogical approach; each week a graphic anthropology source (a comic strip, a field note sketch, or a portion of a full length graphic ethnography) will be paired with a more traditional text-based source on a similar topic. The course also involves a creative, hands-on component whereby students will produce elements of the graphic anthropology process themselves (field note sketches, key concepts rendered in comic strip form, an individual graphic essay, and a collective piece of work on a theme we decide on together as a class).