9/11, Image Control, and the Graphic Narrative: Spiegelman, Rehr, Torres

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2010

Publication Title

Journal of Postcolonial Writing

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Volume

46

Issue

3-4

First page number:

369

Last page number:

380

Abstract

This essay examines three graphic narratives – Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers, Rehr’s Tribeca Sunset, and Torres’s American Widow – as individual responses to the events of September 11, and, more importantly, to the dominant reconstructions that emerged in the ensuing months. The depersonalization of the event – inevitable in the (re)presentation of a limited set of images – is countered by those presented in the graphic narrative. These authors re-appropriate sometimes iconic images to speak of their own experiences of 9/11 and its aftermath. In the interplay of images and text (and the blank spaces between) meanings multiply.

Keywords

Graphic narratives; Representations of trauma; Testimony; Image and text; Counter-narratives

Controlled Subject

Postcolonialism in literature; Comparative literature

Disciplines

Comparative Literature | Political History

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/


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