Depictions of Self and Other: What Do Autobiographical Comics Tell Us About Life in the US?

Description

In 2017, the Library of Congress Magazine released a special issue on its growing comic book collection that urges readers to “open a comic book” where one “can see America in the pages—its people, its values, its culture, how it’s changed.” This workshop will think historically and visually about the process of making comics and the autobiographical nature of this work. Starting with the Underground Comix movement in the late 60s and ending with the recent proliferation of Web Comics on platforms like Instagram, we will explore how the hand of the artist reveals to readers the idiosyncrasies and personal lived experiences of independent comic book creators in the United States. Turning to a handful of revealing case studies, we will reflect on the various aspects of an artist’s identity, embodied and intellectual, including race, gender, religion, class, and political perspectives. We will also think about the various communities in which these artists take part as citizens, critics, activists, and/or scholars. The goal of this workshop is to use autobiographical comics as a starting point for understanding individual lived experiences within the United States and how these narratives map onto or challenge broader frameworks of belonging, such as nationhood, capitalism, and political protest.

Speaker Bio:
Christina E. Pasqua is a PhD Candidate in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Book History and Print Culture Program. Her dissertation “Drawing Out the Word: Remediating the Bible through Comics” explores the role of the comic book in the larger history of the Bible’s translation into English in North America. At the intersection of cultural history and cultural anthropology, her visual and literary analysis of Bible comics focuses on the technical skill involved in producing these texts and pays particular attention to how genre conventions, marketing strategies, gender relations, and an artist’s individual style or biography inform the creation of these visual translations. Christina is also dedicated to putting visual theory into practice: for example, creating digital stories based on visual methods of ethnographic documentation (e.g., photography, videography, and photo essays), website building and graphic design on WordPress and Canva, and practicing watercolour painting and comic book making. This creative labour is connected to her growing interest in translating her research into arts-based media that better reflects how she herself is a visual learner, thinker, researcher, and educator.