A slideshow curated for the 18 - 22 Jan. 2016 issue of "In Media Res: A Media Commons Project" on Rudolphe Töpffer's rhetorically-informed invention of graphic novels.

1. Rudolphe Töpffer’s Graphic Novels:
A Rhetorical Study of Hegel’s
Aesthetics of Physiognomy
A Slideshow Curated by Sergio C. Figueiredo, Assistant Professor of English, Kennesaw
SU
for In Media Res: A Media Commons Project
18 - 22 January 2016

2. Hegel on Physiognomy
“As for the more precise connection between spirit and body in
respect of particular feelings, passions, and states of mind, it is
very difficult to reduce it to fixed categories. Attempts have indeed
been made in pathognomy and physiognomy to present this
connection scientifically, but so far without real success.
Physiognomy alone can be of any importance to us because
pathognomy is concerned only with the way that specific feelings
and passions come alive in certain organs.” (Aesthetics 715)

3. Hegel on Physiognomy
“About physiognomy I will only mention here that if the work of
sculpture, which has the human figure as its basis, is to show the
body, in its bodily forms, presents not only the divine and human
substance of the spirit in a merely general way but also the
particular character of a specific individual in this portrayal of the
Divine, we would also have to embark on an exhaustive discussion
of what parts, traits, and configurations of the body are completely
adequate to express a specific inner mood. […]”

4. Hegel on Physiognomy
“[…] We are instigated to such a study by classical sculptures to
which we must allow that in fact they do express the Divine and the
characters of particular gods. To admit this is not to maintain that
the correspondence between the expression of spirit and the visible
form is only a matter of accident and caprice and not something
absolutely necessary. In this matter each organ must in general be
considered from two points of view, the purely physical one and
that of spiritual expression. It is true that in this connection we may
not proceed after the manner of Gall who makes the spirit into a
bump on the skull.” (Aesthetics 716)

5. “Essai d’Autographie”
Page 7

6. “Essai d’Autographie”
Page 9

7. “Essai d’Autographie”
Page 15

8. “Essai d’Autographie”
Page 17

9. “Essai d’Autographie”
Page 19

10. Fin