Graphic Novels as Potential Actors to Increase Gender-Based Violence Awareness in English Literature Classrooms
Project no. 32054 · Status: Kapanmış · 2024
Summary
<p>This project aims to examine the impact of contemporary graphic novels in English on raising gender equality awareness, and their potential to increase awareness in university students in the English Language and Literature departments. The main aim of the project is also to develop curricula and educational materials that can be used in other fields. The project is carried out in collaboration with Dr. M. Pilar Milagros Garcia from the University of Groningen, which is ranked among the world’s top hundred research institutions. By employing visual rhetoric analysis and critical discourse analysis, the project explores how gender inequality is reflected through various narrative forms in the graphic novel genre, which is particularly popular among young adults. This investigation reveals the social, cultural, and literary roots of gender inequality while demonstrating the capacity of graphic novels to raise awareness on this issue by combining visual and textual narratives to create a transmedially discursive space. The project’s originality is due to the fact that no previous research has been conducted in this specific area. Although the graphic novel genre has traditionally been a male-dominated narrative form, it has been observed that women have also managed to establish a discursive space for themselves. In this regard, the project contributes to initiatives aimed at supporting disadvantaged groups. An analysis of the National Thesis Center of the Turkish Higher Education Council (YÖK) along with international projects and studies shows that while there are master's theses, doctoral dissertations, and research articles focusing on gender, representations of masculinity and femininity, and political and social analyses, there is no existing study that aims to raise awareness about gender-based equality by sharing the works of female graphic novelists with students while focusing simultaneously on both local and international narrative practices which also fulfills an educational function. It is observed in the project that university students who participated in the four-session awareness workshops developed a meaningful understanding of gender-based equality through the works of female graphic novelists. </p>