Syllabus - Intro to Manga - Volume 5 - Pages 281-293

Aug 28, 2026

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Intro to Manga course syllabus by Lindsey Stirek for UIUC, centered on understanding manga as an art and storytelling medium using word and image. The preface explains selection principles for manga texts, emphasizes classroom conversations about diverse viewpoints, and outlines student production workflows that simulate manga creation roles. It also frames the course within land acknowledgment and ongoing commitments to Indigenous scholarship and equitable futures. The syllabus provides course details including ARTJ 301 structure, credit hours, schedule, and instructor contact information.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryComic

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

PREFACE

Course approach and manga selection

Student team production model

SYLLABUS

Course context and land acknowledgment

ARTJ 301: Manga: The Art of Image and Word

Term, meeting time, room, and instructor info

Syllabus: Intro to Manga LINDSEY STIREK Volume 5, Pages 281-293 Keywords: Syllabus, Manga, Class, Teaching, Education Author Bio: Lindsey Stirek is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design and the Assistant Director of Academic Programming at Japan House at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Stirek earned her Ph.D. from the Ohio State University where she specialized in premodern Japanese literature and manga. Currently, her research centers around how storytelling through manga and anime is used to create models of activism for Ainu people. Dr. Stirek teaches courses on manga, anime, and Japanese artistic practices, including chanoyu and lacquer repair. Her writings can be found in The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies, Experiments in Art Research: How Do We Live Questions Through Art?, and the upcoming Handbook of Japanese Aesthetics. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License. PREFACE This syllabus is a labor of love, and is the first syllabus I ever made, though it is almost unrecognizable from the first draft made nearly a decade ago. The hardest part of making this syllabus was, of course, deciding which manga to include. There are so many wonderful manga to choose from that narrowing it down was a herculean effort, and even having done so, I find myself updating the manga I use in each section every year. This is the beauty of teaching manga—it is ever-evolving, ever-changing, and so far I haven’t found any wrong answers for what to include. This is also tragedy of teaching manga—you can never fully represent all the glorious variety there is to read, and somethings will always get left out. The challenge then, is deciding what is too important to leave out. For example, I teach a seminar course that focuses exclusively on Queer manga, but I am only able to offer it occasionally, and it felt important to introduce more of these incredible works in the introductory class. My Brother’s Husband has long been part of this syllabus, but Boys Run the Riot and I Hear the Sunspot are fairly recent additions. Replacing some of the more popular, mainstream manga with these more recent works representing diverse viewpoints was more popular with some students than others, but ultimately led to a better representation of the variety of manga available to read and opened space for some transformative conversations in the classroom. Manga is such a powerful medium, and its influence is constantly expanding. While not as popular in the U.S. as anime, it has a dedicated fan base and Western comics artists often cite manga techniques and styles as influences on their own works. While one doesn’t necessarily have to draw manga to understand the genius of manga techniques, playing a part in the creation of a manga is critical to gaining an applied knowledge of how manga works and why it is impactful. In the early versions of this class, I had every student make their own manga, which had some benefits, especially for the students who really had a story they wanted to tell, but on the suggestion of my student and later grading assistant, Jenny Han, I decided to try having the students work in teams to produce their manga. They are now split into groups of 2 or 3, matched based on their interests and have to fulfill the writer, illustrator, and editor roles between them. Not only does this replicate, with obvious limitations, the way many manga are produced, but it gives them a chance to play to their strengths and exchange ideas with teammates. This change resulted in extraordinary quality manga and was the impetus for the creation of the ongoing class zine, Nenkan 301 . Although this class has been through hybrid and online versions, the in-person iteration is my favorite way to run the class, as it allows students to work on their manga in a simulated studio setting as well as to see other groups’ work an

FAQs

What is the core teaching focus of the Intro to Manga syllabus?

The syllabus focuses on how manga works as a powerful storytelling medium combining word and image, using curated manga selections to support deep exploration and classroom discussion.

How are students expected to create manga in the course?

Students work in teams of 2 or 3 and must fulfill writer, illustrator, and editor roles, mirroring how manga is produced and allowing them to exchange ideas based on strengths.

What does the syllabus emphasize regarding representation and course responsibility?

It highlights the importance of including diverse manga viewpoints and connects course responsibility to ongoing commitments to supporting Indigenous scholars and addressing legacies of colonialism, enslavement, and marginalization.

Aug 28, 2026

Upload by Angel