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Henderson and Thomas Contribute to New Book

|Henderson and Thomas contribute to “Teaching Comics”

Last updated September 8, 2016

By News administrator

Education Professors Scott Henderson, Ph.D., and Paul Thomas, Ed.D., have contributed chapters to a new book, Teaching Comics Through Multiple Lenses: Critical Perspectives (Routledge).

Henderson and Thomas contribute to "Teaching Comics"

Henderson and Thomas contribute to “Teaching Comics”

The book, edited by Crag Allen Hill of the University of Oklahoma, demonstrates how comics help us read the world in ways that no other medium can. Each author has an eye on comics as a unique art form, a vital contributor to our conversations about being in the world. Written by teachers and scholars of comics for instructors, this book bridges research and pedagogy, providing instructors with models of critical readings around a variety of comics.

In Chapter Five, “Just Like Us? LGBTQ Characters in Mainstream Comics,” Henderson discusses ways that queer theory can help teachers and students understand portrayal of gender and sexual orientation as part of character identities. In Chapter Nine, “Can Superhero Comics Defeat Racism?: Black Superheroes Torn between Sci-Fi Fantasy and Cultural Reality,” Thomas pushes readers to think about how comics engage and disengage with provocative issues related to race and racism.

Thomas and Henderson previously collaborated on two books, Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect (Peter Lang USA), and James Baldwin: Challenging Authors (Sense Publishers).

Before joining the Furman faculty in 2002, Thomas taught high school English in rural South Carolina. He earned undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees in education from the University of South Carolina.

He was the 2013 recipient of the George Orwell Award presented by the National Council of Teachers of English. He is a column editor for the English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English and has written commentaries for the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Education Week, The State, and The Greenville News. Read Thomas’ blog at https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com

Henderson, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Education, has been a member of Furman University’s Education Department since 1998. He previously taught in the Chesapeake City, Va. schools and at Yamagata Women’s Junior College in Japan. He is Director of Furman’s Community of Scholars program and the university’s Director of National/International Scholarships.

Teaching Comics is now available through Amazon. For more information, contact Furman’s News and Media Relations office at (864) 294-3107.

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