Nathan Holic of the Department of Writing and Rhetoric and his class were featured in the Orlando Sentinel on February 27, 2017 for his ENC3375 Rhetoric in Popular Culture class. This is a special topics class where the subject matter varies semester by semester, and largely depends on which professor teaches the class. Some past topics featured fantasy football, the zombie apocalypse, and Holic’s rendition of the class, which is called “The Rhetoric of Comics.”
From the in-class activities to the syllabus, comics are explored as a medium that can be used for a wide variety of genres. Some of his students illustrate situations that involve themselves while others like to portray the world around them. Holic developed his version of the course from scratch, and has even built a Tumblr page to highlight his students’ work. Some of the objectives for the course include analyzing many different genres of comics, understanding the language of the comic, and conceptualizing how this style can be applied to entirely different avenues of writing. One thing that is made very clear in the syllabus is that one does not have to be an artist to appreciate the course – all you need is an imagination and a healthy curiosity for what even the simplest of icons can accomplish.
To learn more, visit the Orlando Sentinel’s highlight of Holic’s course here.