Maus and The Best We Could Do

 This is the Intro Paragraph Traumatic events such as the Holocaust and the results of the Vietnam War are retold through the eyes of Art and Thi’s fathers, Vladek and Bố. In these two graphic memoirs although dealing with different traumatic events, face similar hardship in connecting within the family. In ‘The Complete Maus’ by Art Spiegelman and ‘The Best We Could Do’ by Thi Bui, as adults, create these stories as a way to try becoming closer to their parents, especially their fathers. Through the retelling of Vladek and Bố’s stories these authors achieve closure and finally mend their broken connections. For the final research paper, which should be 8 to 10 pages in length, you are expected to engage in and develop a critical position based on an issue or theme examined in one or more of the class readings. You can use one or more of the graphic narratives or films we discussed in class as your primary text for analysis, or you can choose to analyze primary texts we have not covered in class but are related to the class material, whether in form or content (such as other graphic texts or films you are familiar with, or texts that focus on topics we have covered in class). Your analysis in this paper differs from that in the first two papers since it has to incorporate secondary sources (essays, reviews, links to historical backgrounds, media clips etc.) that are directly connected to the topic of your paper. You can use secondary texts we read in class, but make sure to draw on the list of secondary sources you include in your Annotated Bibliography (even if you do not end up including all of them in your analysis). This final research paper should clearly show how you are incorporating texts not included on the class reading list to develop your ideas and critical interests. Make sure you include at least three outside sources in your final paper (drawn from the Annotated Bibliography or otherwise). In all cases, the paper should develop a cohesive and well-researched topic and should lay out a clear argument. When deciding on a topic for your final research paper, you can either choose a topic you have not explored before in the class (but is related to our class readings and discussions), or you can build on some of the issues you wrote about in your first two response essays. If doing the latter, you should branch out and widen the scope of your initial approach to the topic to present a more detailed argument, incorporating additional texts and viewpoints, or various perspectives on the same issue. Make sure that your paper directly addresses the topics we have been discussing in class, such as the connection between memory and war trauma, comics and journalistic reporting, representation of the other through comics, illustration and text, history and art, stereotypical representations of Arabs and Muslims, and representations of graphic war images, to name a few. You will then narrow down your focus to develop a specific handling of the topic, relying in doing so on class material as well as sources you found through your own research. If you have an idea for a topic that we might not have touched on in class, please meet with me to discuss it.