Cultures of War in Graphic Novels: Violence, Trauma, and Memory
Cultures of War in Graphic Novels: Violence, Trauma, and Memory
edited by Tatiana Prorokova and Nimrod Tal contributions by Joe Lockard, Christina M. Knopf, Peter C. Valenti, Silvia G. Kurlat Ares, Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Tatiana Prorokova, Nimrod Tal, Iain A. MacInnes, Kenton Worcester, Emir Pasanovic, Harriet E.H. Earle and James Kelley
Rutgers University Press, 2018 eISBN: 978-0-8135-9099-8 | Paper: 978-0-8135-9095-0 | Cloth: 978-0-8135-9096-7 Library of Congress Classification PN6714.C85 2018 Dewey Decimal Classification 741.59
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
First runner-up for the 2019 Ray and Pat Browne Award for the Best Edited Collection in Popular and American Culture
Cultures of War in Graphic Novels examines the representation of small-scale and often less acknowledged conflicts from around the world and throughout history. The contributors look at an array of graphic novels about conflicts such as the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), the Irish struggle for national independence (1916-1998), the Falkland War (1982), the Bosnian War (1992-1995), the Rwandan genocide (1994), the Israel-Lebanon War (2006), and the War on Terror (2001-). The book explores the multi-layered relation between the graphic novel as a popular medium and war as a pivotal recurring experience in human history. The focus on largely overlooked small-scale conflicts contributes not only to advance our understanding of graphic novels about war and the cultural aspects of war as reflected in graphic novels, but also our sense of the early twenty-first century, in which popular media and limited conflicts have become closely interrelated.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
TATIANA PROROKOVA holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Marburg, Germany, and is an academic editor at Pod Academy, United Kingdom.
NIMROD TAL is a lecturer at Kibbutzim College in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is the author of The American Civil War in British Culture: Representations and Responses, 1870s to the Present.
REVIEWS
"What makes this collection exciting and groundbreaking is its eagerness to look beyond familiar works devoted to familiar conflicts. The result is a refreshingly non-USA-centric survey of the graphic novel medium and its engagement with trauma and collective memory."
— Steven Trout, coeditor of War+Ink: New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway's Early Life and Writings
"A thought-provoking work about the nature of war, memory, culture, and the ways we tell those stories."
— H-Net
"Highly recommended."
— Choice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Tatiana Prorokova and Nimrod Tal
Part I: Representations
Chapter 1: “A Clash of Arms to Be Eternally Remembered”: War, Chivalry, and the Hundred Years War in Le Trône d'Argile and Crécy
Iain A. MacInnes
Chapter 2: Graphic Narrative and the War on Terror
Kenton Worcester
Chapter 3: What Is War in the Bosnian Graphic Novel
Emir Pasanovic
Part II: Non-Combatants’ Experiences
Chapter 4: “The Sky Is Darkened by Gods”: Spirituality, Strength, and Violence in Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers and Saints
Harriet E.H. Earle
Chapter 5: Unseen Scars: Recalling Traumatic Moments in Individuals with PTSD in War Brothers
James Kelley
Chapter 6: Nat Turner, Slave Revolts, and Child-Killing in US Graphic Novels
Joe Lockard
Chapter 7: Sinne Fianna Fáil: Women, Irish Rebellions, and the Graphic Novels of Gerry Hunt
Christina M. Knopf
Chapter 8: “The Children Internalize the Meaning of the Occupation”: Growing Up under Israeli Occupation and a Culture of Resistance in Joe Sacco’s Palestine
Peter C. Valenti
Part III: Memories
Chapter 9: The Malvinas War in Argentine Memory: Graphic Representations of Defeat and Nationalism, 1982-2015
Silvia G. Kurlat Ares
Chapter 10: The Haunting Power of War: Remembering the Rwandan Genocide in 99 Days
Tatiana Prorokova
Chapter 11: Blogging in Times of War: The July 2006 War in Lebanon, Mazen Kerbaj Imaging the Unimaginable
Yasmine Nachabe Taan
Notes on Contributors
Index