Emily Van Buskirk
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691166797
- eISBN:
- 9781400873777
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691166797.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
This introductory chapter begins with a review of the works of Lydia Ginzburg. Ginzburg came of age soon after the Revolutions of 1917 as the most talented student of the Russian Formalists. For ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a review of the works of Lydia Ginzburg. Ginzburg came of age soon after the Revolutions of 1917 as the most talented student of the Russian Formalists. For seven decades, she wrote about the reality of daily life and historical change in Soviet Russia. Yet in the English-speaking world, she is still known primarily as a literary scholar and as a “memoirist” of the siege of Leningrad during World War II. The chapter then sets out the book's focus, namely to investigate Ginzburg's concept of the self in the wake of the crisis of invidualism: a self that is called “post-individualist.” An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented followed by a biographical sketch of Ginzburg.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a review of the works of Lydia Ginzburg. Ginzburg came of age soon after the Revolutions of 1917 as the most talented student of the Russian Formalists. For seven decades, she wrote about the reality of daily life and historical change in Soviet Russia. Yet in the English-speaking world, she is still known primarily as a literary scholar and as a “memoirist” of the siege of Leningrad during World War II. The chapter then sets out the book's focus, namely to investigate Ginzburg's concept of the self in the wake of the crisis of invidualism: a self that is called “post-individualist.” An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented followed by a biographical sketch of Ginzburg.
Elisabeth El Refaie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036132
- eISBN:
- 9781621036180
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036132.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This book concludes by identifying the key formal properties and narrative techniques of a relatively new and flourishing art form, the graphic memoir. The autobiographical comics presented in this ...
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This book concludes by identifying the key formal properties and narrative techniques of a relatively new and flourishing art form, the graphic memoir. The autobiographical comics presented in this book have shown that individual works differ substantially in terms of their subject matter, artistic style, and the degree to which they claim to be “true” to the author’s real-life experiences. While some graphic memoirists focus on the actual, specific experiences they have had, others use the genre to reflect upon the complex nature of self-identity and truth, often freely mixing nuggets of fact with blatant fiction. Despite their varying motivations, all graphic memoirists must face the same set of fundamental challenges: they must find a way of representing themselves both verbally and visually, address the unique properties of the human sense of time, try to convey a sense of authenticity, and, perhaps most importantly, attract and captivate their readers.Less
This book concludes by identifying the key formal properties and narrative techniques of a relatively new and flourishing art form, the graphic memoir. The autobiographical comics presented in this book have shown that individual works differ substantially in terms of their subject matter, artistic style, and the degree to which they claim to be “true” to the author’s real-life experiences. While some graphic memoirists focus on the actual, specific experiences they have had, others use the genre to reflect upon the complex nature of self-identity and truth, often freely mixing nuggets of fact with blatant fiction. Despite their varying motivations, all graphic memoirists must face the same set of fundamental challenges: they must find a way of representing themselves both verbally and visually, address the unique properties of the human sense of time, try to convey a sense of authenticity, and, perhaps most importantly, attract and captivate their readers.
Elisabeth El Refaie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036132
- eISBN:
- 9781621036180
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036132.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
Over the last forty years the comic book has become an increasingly popular way of telling personal stories of considerable complexity and depth. This book offers an assessment of the key ...
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Over the last forty years the comic book has become an increasingly popular way of telling personal stories of considerable complexity and depth. This book offers an assessment of the key conventions, formal properties, and narrative patterns of this genre. It considers eighty-five works of North American and European provenance, works that cover a broad range of subject matters and employ many different artistic styles. Drawing on concepts from several disciplinary fields—including semiotics, literary and narrative theory, art history, and psychology—the book shows that the traditions and formal features of comics provide new possibilities for autobiographical storytelling. For example, the requirement to produce multiple drawn versions of one’s self necessarily involves an intense engagement with physical aspects of identity, as well as with the cultural models that underpin body image. The comics medium also offers memoirists unique ways of representing their experience of time, their memories of past events, and their hopes and dreams for the future. Furthermore, autobiographical comics creators are able to draw on the close association in contemporary Western culture between seeing and believing in order to persuade readers of the authentic nature of their stories.Less
Over the last forty years the comic book has become an increasingly popular way of telling personal stories of considerable complexity and depth. This book offers an assessment of the key conventions, formal properties, and narrative patterns of this genre. It considers eighty-five works of North American and European provenance, works that cover a broad range of subject matters and employ many different artistic styles. Drawing on concepts from several disciplinary fields—including semiotics, literary and narrative theory, art history, and psychology—the book shows that the traditions and formal features of comics provide new possibilities for autobiographical storytelling. For example, the requirement to produce multiple drawn versions of one’s self necessarily involves an intense engagement with physical aspects of identity, as well as with the cultural models that underpin body image. The comics medium also offers memoirists unique ways of representing their experience of time, their memories of past events, and their hopes and dreams for the future. Furthermore, autobiographical comics creators are able to draw on the close association in contemporary Western culture between seeing and believing in order to persuade readers of the authentic nature of their stories.
Elisabeth El Refaie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036132
- eISBN:
- 9781621036180
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036132.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This chapter describes how, in Western industrialized nations, time is commonly conceptualized as something linear, regular, and measurable. However, our actual experience of temporality is much ...
More
This chapter describes how, in Western industrialized nations, time is commonly conceptualized as something linear, regular, and measurable. However, our actual experience of temporality is much richer and less reassuring than this. In our memories, time acquires a further dimension, often skipping certain events completely, while preserving an exact record of seemingly unimportant details, or combining two different moments in unexpected ways. This idiosyncratic experience of subjective time, with its irregularities, circularities, overlaps, and gaps, is what graphic memoirists typically want to “commemorate” or share with their readers. Time has always been a central concern of narrative theorists, who like to draw a distinction between the chronology or duration of events in a story (“story-time”) and the way these are rearranged in the process of their telling (“discourse-time”).Less
This chapter describes how, in Western industrialized nations, time is commonly conceptualized as something linear, regular, and measurable. However, our actual experience of temporality is much richer and less reassuring than this. In our memories, time acquires a further dimension, often skipping certain events completely, while preserving an exact record of seemingly unimportant details, or combining two different moments in unexpected ways. This idiosyncratic experience of subjective time, with its irregularities, circularities, overlaps, and gaps, is what graphic memoirists typically want to “commemorate” or share with their readers. Time has always been a central concern of narrative theorists, who like to draw a distinction between the chronology or duration of events in a story (“story-time”) and the way these are rearranged in the process of their telling (“discourse-time”).
