Posthumanist trauma: An intrasectional approach to accountable determinacy in current North American narrative

How can we deal with trauma in a posthuman world? The 9th of September 2001 will be remembered as the day the world changed. The turn of the century in the Western world was signaled by this national trauma, but also by a change in the humanist paradigm that very much conditioned the way in which such trauma was experienced and represented. This article explores this intersection in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Art Spiegelman as they struggle to account for 9/11 through two trauma narratives that signal a matching change in aesthetic approach. Its methodological innovation lies in the application of Karen Barad’s concept of “intra-action” to the humanities.

A ‘Stain on Silence’: The Registration of Trauma in the Comics Memoirs of Alison Bechdel and Art Spiegelman

<p>The value of comics as a medium for serious literary expression, despite growing popularity and recognition, is still contested. Two of the most successful examples of the medium, Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1986 & 1992) and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006), use differing and similar strategies to narrate the transmission of trauma from parent to child. Maus records the testimony of Spiegelman’s survivor father’s experiences in hiding in Poland and in Auschwitz and Dachau, as well as the process of this testimony and the conflicted relationship between father and son. Fun Home’s traumatic history centres on Bechdel’s artistically ambitious father’s closeted affairs with teenage boys, and his overbearing influence on her own artistry and queer sexuality. This thesis tracks the narrative and graphic registration of trauma in these two memoirs, through their use of archival materials, consideration of the ethical problems of the representation of extremity and history, and treatment of narrative time.</p>

A ‘Stain on Silence’: The Registration of Trauma in the Comics Memoirs of Alison Bechdel and Art Spiegelman

<p>The value of comics as a medium for serious literary expression, despite growing popularity and recognition, is still contested. Two of the most successful examples of the medium, Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1986 & 1992) and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006), use differing and similar strategies to narrate the transmission of trauma from parent to child. Maus records the testimony of Spiegelman’s survivor father’s experiences in hiding in Poland and in Auschwitz and Dachau, as well as the process of this testimony and the conflicted relationship between father and son. Fun Home’s traumatic history centres on Bechdel’s artistically ambitious father’s closeted affairs with teenage boys, and his overbearing influence on her own artistry and queer sexuality. This thesis tracks the narrative and graphic registration of trauma in these two memoirs, through their use of archival materials, consideration of the ethical problems of the representation of extremity and history, and treatment of narrative time.</p>

Paradigm Shift from Books to Graphic Novels: The Coherence and Aesthetics of Graphic Narratives

This paper focuses on the seemingly important aspects of graphic novels that make them a remarkable genre of literature. The aesthetics and the power of illustration are taken into consideration in detail in the study. Maus by Art Spiegelman and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi are taken as case studies. The radically different style used in Persepolis challenged the popular convictions on storytelling and its success as a graphic novel has profoundly influenced many Middle Eastern writers. To determine the efficacy of graphic novels, a survey is conducted among school students. Analysis is drawn from the survey and demonstrated with the help of graphs and pie charts.

The case for graphic counter-memorials in the comics of Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli

My dissertation considers a group of contemporary comics about war by Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, as examples of a larger genre I call the graphic counter-memorial. Graphic counter-memorial comics address history, memory, and trauma as they depict the political, violent, and collective aspects of war and social conflict. I argue that the particular comics I study in this dissertation, which mingle fiction and non-fiction and autobiography as well as journalism, follow the tradition of the counter-monuments described by James E. Young. Studying commemorative practices and counter-monuments in the 1980s, Young notes a generation of German artists who resist traditional forms of memorialization by upending the traditional monument structure in monument form. Young looks at the methods, aims, and aesthetics these artists use to investigate and problematize practices that establish singular historical narratives. Like these works of public art, the graphic counter-memorial asks the reader to question ‘official history,’ authenticity, and the objectivity typically associated with non-fiction and reporting. I argue that what these comics offer is an opportunity to re-examine comics that incorporate real and familiar social and historical events and wars. Comics allow creators to visually and textually overlap perspectives and time. Graphic counter-memorials harness the comic medium’s potential to refuse fixed narratives of history by emphasizing a sense of incompleteness in their representation of trauma, memory, and war. This makes possible a more complex and rich way to engage with Western society’s relationship to the past, and in particular, a more complex way of engaging with collective memory and war. Their modes of mediating history produce political intervention through both form and content.

The case for graphic counter-memorials in the comics of Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli

My dissertation considers a group of contemporary comics about war by Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, as examples of a larger genre I call the graphic counter-memorial. Graphic counter-memorial comics address history, memory, and trauma as they depict the political, violent, and collective aspects of war and social conflict. I argue that the particular comics I study in this dissertation, which mingle fiction and non-fiction and autobiography as well as journalism, follow the tradition of the counter-monuments described by James E. Young. Studying commemorative practices and counter-monuments in the 1980s, Young notes a generation of German artists who resist traditional forms of memorialization by upending the traditional monument structure in monument form. Young looks at the methods, aims, and aesthetics these artists use to investigate and problematize practices that establish singular historical narratives. Like these works of public art, the graphic counter-memorial asks the reader to question ‘official history,’ authenticity, and the objectivity typically associated with non-fiction and reporting. I argue that what these comics offer is an opportunity to re-examine comics that incorporate real and familiar social and historical events and wars. Comics allow creators to visually and textually overlap perspectives and time. Graphic counter-memorials harness the comic medium’s potential to refuse fixed narratives of history by emphasizing a sense of incompleteness in their representation of trauma, memory, and war. This makes possible a more complex and rich way to engage with Western society’s relationship to the past, and in particular, a more complex way of engaging with collective memory and war. Their modes of mediating history produce political intervention through both form and content.

Media Representation and Transmediation: Indexicality in Journalism Comics and Biography Comics

This article analyzes the ways in which journalism comics and biography comics create indexicality through intermedial relations. These strategies include media representations of different qualified media types (journalistic report, biography, and autobiography) and of specific media products (such as familiar images of people and places). The article starts with a short history of comics. It then offers a theoretical discussion of intermediality, media representation, and transmediation, with specific focus on the tactics that journalism and biography comics use to represent reality indexically through media representation and transmediation. Furthermore, the authors analyze intermedial relations in the comic albums The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, and Frederic Lemercier; Il mondo di Aisha—Storie di donne dello Yemen by Ugo Bertotti; Maus by Art Spiegelman; To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisner; Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes by Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot; and Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco.

The role of the autobiographical graphic novels in the elaboration of psychic traumas: Art Spiegelman, David B. and Justin Green

The aim of the present article is to examine the therapeutic potential of autobiographical graphic novels in the context of the theory of art as psychic reparation. The starting point for such analysis is Stefano Ferrari’s research on writing as reparation and Duccio Demetrio’s work on autobiographical creativity. By examining three well-known and influential autobiographical graphic novels by Art Spiegelman, David B. and Justin Green, it aims to highlight some of the mechanisms of autobiographical narrative specific to the long-form comics format and the role they play in the elaboration of psychic traumas.