“Teaching the Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye”
Angelia Poon
One of the most rewarding Literature lessons I have taught in the last two years has centered around Sonny Liew’s The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. I have assigned the book for undergraduate and Masters-level classes as part of thirteen-week courses with a curricular focus on asking questions about the nature of literariness, literary thinking and ‘Literature’ as a discipline. In this sense, the selection of Liew’s work is perhaps particularly apt given its controversial production history: the graphic novel had its grant from the National Arts Council withdrawn only for Liew and publisher Epigram to see sales soar through the roof. Since its publication, the book has garnered much international acclaim while also bagging the Singapore Literature Prize in 2016. Clearly, prescribing this graphic novel to be discussed among undergraduate and Masters students in small seminar-style settings presupposes that the text is literary. Certainly my students were expected to bring their close and critical reading skills to bear upon the text, subjecting it to the same scrutiny and analysis that one would accord more conventional literary works even if comics are traditionally understood as a popular cultural form. Students were asked to consider The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye in terms of how the text intervened in their understanding of Singapore history and literature. They had to articulate the alternative perpectives it offered and investigate the stylistic and narrative strategies used to bring about not only these perspectives but critical self-examination as well. In terms of the classroom dynamics, it was important for me that students engage in dialogue, discussion, and debate with one another: they had to be willing to listen to others, be brave enough to express doubt and ambivalence, as well as be comfortable enough to justify their own views. (more…)
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