Reading Lessons in Seeing

Chaney’s sophisticated application of theory from several fields to autobiographical comics reveals just how rich in effect and meaning these comics can be and precisely why this is so in each case that he analyzes.“” - Stephen E. Tabachnick, professor of English at the University of Memphis and author, editor, and coeditor of numerous books, including Teaching the Graphic Novel””Reading Lessons in Seeing stands out because it is unafraid to be suggestive; it is evocatively and often quite beautifully written; and it draws on critical theory, philosophy, and psychoanalysis with sophistication. Chaney argues that comics teach their viewers how they ought to be read. In elucidating how comics form makes abstractions of identity visible, he proposes, significantly, that comics present a new compact of textual engagement.“” - Hillary L. Chute, author of Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form

Michael A. Chaney, White River Junction, Vermont, is associate professor of English at Dartmouth College and chair of the African and African American studies program. He is the author of Fugitive Vision: Slave Image and Black Identity in Antebellum Narrative and editor of Graphic Subjects: Critical Essays on Autobiography and Graphic Novels.