Transnational Perspectives on Neil Gaiman\u27s Sandman

Both comics studies and transnational literary studies have become increasingly popular in English departments over the past two decades. However, transnational studies and graphic narrative have only more recently crossed paths in academia. This transnational exploration of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman texts will closely examine two initial narrative arcs within the original 75 issues. After an initial inspection of the transnational properties inherent to graphic narrative and the idiosyncrasies of Sandman’s visual mode, this project will examine how the text’s narrative and form reflect Stephen Clingman’s grammatical construction of a transitive syntax of the self and Christian Moraru’s cosmodernism, a Levinasian-based model for examining identity in a transnational context, while drawing similarities between the two transnational literary theories. Ultimately, this project aims to show how Sandman, a non-traditional text without explicit transnational themes, is fertile ground for many types of transnational treatments