Speaker
Description
Moments of crisis in history like war, periods of dictatorial rule, and persecution or displacement of large parts of a population usually are important elements of national history, but because of their traumatic nature they may also become a taboo, or at least specific parts of historic events and developments may be neglected or even negated. Therefore, the reviving of memory of such historical moments of crisis may itself be a symptom of an actual crisis or lead to a crisis of memory, in which a new understanding of history and national identity gets in conflict with an older one, causing even what has been called a ‘memory war’. The presentation will compare examples of graphic novels from different countries (France, Belgium, Germany, Israel and Spain) dealing with different historical instances of crisis in different countries (the Minor Asia catastrophy and the Metaxas dictatorship/Greece, World War II/Germany and Belgium, the Holocaust/Israel and Germany, the Spanish civil war/Spain) from the last two decades. Comics/graphic novels shall be analysed as a medium through which increasingly critical matters of history and collective memory are represented and reflected, also, but not exclusively for younger audiences. Particular attention will be given to the meta-reflection of processes of memory in these works, their relation to specific objects or circumstances facilitating memory, the thematization of obstacles to be overcome in the process of remembrance and the personal or collective crisis the ‘new’ ways of memory may be related to.
Possible analysed examples will include:
David Prudhomme: Rébétiko (la mauvaise herbe). 2009
Warnauts & Raives: Les temps nouveaux. 2011-12
Birgit Weyhe: Reigen. 2011
Rutu Modan: The Property. 2013
Barbara Yelin: Irmina. 2014
Paco Roca, Rodrigo Terrasa: El abismo del olvido. 2023
| Keywords | Comics/Graphic novels, memory wars, reflection of historical periods of crisis, intercultural comparison |
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| andreas.boehn@kit.edu |