Congist'26: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Crisis

Shadows and Mothers. Representations of Generational Conflicts, Psychological Crises and Systemic Healthcare Critique in German-Language Comics

D1-S2-K1

13 May 2026, 16:15

20m

Kurul Odası (Istanbul University Faculty of Letters)

Oral Presentation Session 2.7 (Day 1)

Speaker

Jessica Langenstein (Karlsruher Institute of Technology)

Description

Traumatic experiences, accounts of familial conflicts as well as systemic oppression are topics oftentimes explored in the format of the Graphic Novel. Not only are they artistic and subjective representations of memory/semiotic (re-)construction: due to their multimodal nature, they can also be interpreted as artefacts of discourse.

The interdisciplinary field of Graphic Medicine thus explores comics and their multifaceted relations to Healthcare and the Health Humanities (ranging from educational tool to entertainment). As pointed out by Nina Schmidt (Schmidt, 2020), Graphic Novels dealing with health-related topics can also be interpreted as critique towards the Healthcare system. Reviewing German-Language Comics, the reoccuring topic of intergenerational conflicts due to changing beliefs around health as well as inaccessibility to healthcare in previous generations are observable.

The presentation aims to explore exemplary comics from a media studies perspective, taking into account the specific multimodal characteristics of the comics medium. Tina Brenneisen's autobiographical comic "Das Licht, das Schatten leert" (2019) explores the trauma of stillbirth and the strains on familial relationships. Coping with the acute psychological crisis unravels unresolved conflicts due to her family‘s inadequacy to navigate loss and their feelings of helplessness. Motherhood as a precarious situation is hinted at also through the characters of the mother and sister.
In a more detailed fashion, Stefan Hallers comic "Schattenmutter" (2021) depicts the artist’s reconstruction of his mother’s depression and its influence on his and his sibling’s childhood. As Brenneisen's comic touches on the conflict between West and East Germany after 1989, "Schattenmutter" depicts Mental Health in Switzerland after 1945.

Schmidt, N. (2020) "Beyond the Personal: The Systemic Critique of German Graphic Medicine.", Seminar. A Journal of Germanic Studies, 56(3–4), pp. 368–388.