Michael A Chaney
Associate Professor
Department of English
Dartmouth College
United States of America
Biography
Michael A Chaney specialized in nineteenth-century American literature and African American literature, mixed race representation, visual culture studies, autobiography and comics and graphic novels. His latest book, Reading Lessons in Seeing: Mirrors, Masks, and Mazes in the Autobiographical Graphic Novel, examines "graphic novels" to illustrate how comics--both in form and function--are pedagogical, instructing readers on how they ought to be read. His academic writing tends to merge a healthy skepticism for the obvious with a passion for the unexpected and the theoretical, a perspective honed perhaps by his original calling as a visual artist. His creative writing tends to blur genres and modes, a perspective no doubt inspired by his own mixed race heritage. Recent creative credits include Prairie Schooner, The Minnesota Review, The Los Angeles Review, Fourth Genre, and New Ohio Review.
Research Interest
Graphic novels, visual culture studies, autobiography, and comics and graphic novels.
Publications
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Depicting African American Life in Graphics and Visual Cultures. Forthcoming in A History of African American Autobiography, ed., Joycelyn Moody. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
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Will Eisner and the Making of A Contract with God. Forthcoming in Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel, eds. Stephen Tabachnick, Jan Baetens, and Hugo Frey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
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Why Call Them Graphic Novels If They are True? Classifying Fun Home’s Mirrors. Forthcoming in Approaches to Teaching Alison Bechdels Fun Home, ed., Judith Gardiner. New York: MLA Press, 2017.
