Variable subject matter; see departmental announcement for description. Sample topics: Knut Hamsun, Kierkegaard, H. C. Andersen, Isak Dinesen, and other storytellers. Readings and discussion in English.

“A classic is a white rabbit / in the magician’s hat”, wrote Lars Huldén (1926-2016). This course examines the ways in which a number of Scandinavian nineteenth- and twentieth-century classics have traveled across media, time, place, culture, and language. We will look at the transpositional processes through which novels, tales, fairy tales, plays, films have been remediated by international artists working in the medium of comics. Before contemplating the touch of the adapter-magician, we will examine the white rabbit inside the top hat: What is a ‘classic’? What qualities is a ‘classic’ work of art believed to possess? What happens when this notion, which undoubtedly conveys a taste of academic convention and high-brow fixity, is fused with an art form stemming from popular culture? We will discuss themes and narrative structures in the source works to find out how the comic art adaptations engage with their forerunners, a relationship which is bound to bring to the fore the problematic and persistent issue of ‘fidelity’ in adaptation theory. What kind of negotiation and selection has been undertaken in the process of adaptation? What other sources — intertextual, interartistic, intercultural — are of relevance to the understanding of the adaptations? A theoretical framework drawing on the fields of adaptation- and comics studies (Hutcheon; Groensteen) will be introduced before we venture into an exploration of the aesthetics, techniques, and narrative machinery of graphic storytelling. In dealing with a primarily visual medium, focus will, to a large extent, be placed on the formal resources of sequential art. Some of the works will also offer the opportunity to consider the ways in which adaptations may challenge the plot-as-we-know- it and grant the source text new meaning. Other examples will show how the core narrative of the source has been adjusted to suit the new cultural, social or historical context in which the adaptation has come into being.

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Requirements class fulfills