| Course title | Drama Acting |
|---|---|
| Course code | KAA/PLAY |
| Organizational form of instruction | Seminar |
| Level of course | Bachelor |
| Year of study | not specified |
| Semester | Winter and summer |
| Number of ECTS credits | 4 |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Status of course | Compulsory-optional |
| Form of instruction | Face-to-face |
| Work placements | This is not an internship |
| Recommended optional programme components | None |
| Course availability | The course is available to visiting students |
| Lecturer(s) |
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| Course content |
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unspecified
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| Learning activities and teaching methods |
| unspecified |
| Learning outcomes |
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COURSE DESCRIPTION This course examines the graphic novel as a powerful vehicle for witnessing, testimony, and human rights advocacy. Drawing on texts spanning Holocaust memory (Spiegelman's Maus), Indigenous land and sovereignty struggles (Sacco's Paying the Land), gender identity (Kobabe's Gender Queer), and ecological politics (Keller's Who Is Afraid of Degrowth?), students will develop skills in visual literacy and the close reading of comics as a hybrid verbal-visual form. Grounding their analysis in contemporary scholarshipincluding Chute's Disaster Drawn and Polak's Ethics in the Gutterstudents will learn to situate graphic narratives within literary theory, questioning how documentary form, the gutter, and sequential art produce empathy, historical consciousness, and ethical readerly engagement. By pairing textual study with a self-selected human rights education module, the course bridges cultural analysis and civic awareness: students will contextualize fictional representation against real-world rights frameworks, articulate connections between narrative form and social justice, and translate their insights for broader audiences. Through collaborative study in small groups, analytical essay writing, reflective dialogue, and the production of an educational minizine, students will strengthen competencies in critical argumentation, interdisciplinary synthesis, peer exchange, and public-facing communication. Ultimately, the course aims to cultivate readers who attend both carefully and compassionatelyto the page, to the world it depicts, and to the rights and responsibilities that bind them. The course culminates with a student symposium on International Human Rights Day, and features cooperation with the Faculty of Law UPOL. READING LIST Graphic novels: Maus 1, Art Spiegelman Who is Afraid of Degrowth?, Celine Keller Paying the Land, Joe Sacco Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe Literary studies and context: Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form, Hillary Chute 2016 Ethics in the Gutter: Empathy and Historical Fiction in Comics, Kate Polak 2017 Human rights introduction: Choose a course from The Council of Europ HELP free education offerings, and selected readings curated by our collaborating professor at the Faculty of Law, Dr. Alla Fedorova. COURSE PROCESS Students select their reading focus from the four graphic novels. They will form study triads from the group around the book. For several weeks we will focus on visual literacy and close reading the book. Students will be assigned one of the two literary theory books. They will contextualize a rereading of their graphic novel against the backdrop of the book. A short essay will be turned in. Students will self-select the human rights course they find most relevant, and complete the course. Students will then deepen their understanding by pairing the course material with a curated scholarly article. They will write a short think piece reflection, which will be posted anonymously within the class. Students will write a response to one anonymous think piece. Students will select one key concept which they would like to make a minizine about (must be anchored in the human rights course and have some reflection in the reading). They will spend several classes developing an educational minizine. December 10th, we will hold a small symposium on International Human Rights Day where students will participate in a roundtable (Dr. Woock will moderate), make short conference-style presentations, and present their finished minizines.
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| Prerequisites |
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unspecified
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| Assessment methods and criteria |
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unspecified
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| Recommended literature |
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| Study plans that include the course |
| Faculty | Study plan (Version) | Category of Branch/Specialization | Recommended semester | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2024) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2019) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2020) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2024) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2019) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2019) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2024) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2024) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2019) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2024) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2019) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2024) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2019) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |
| Faculty: Faculty of Arts | Study plan (Version): English Philology (2020) | Category: Philological sciences | - | Recommended year of study:-, Recommended semester: - |