In our last ASTU class we were discussing this topic – the creation of fonds and the writing process in relation to our global citizens program. The question was asked: how has your understanding of the writing process changed throughout the semester? By visiting the RBSC library I definitely gained a greater understanding of an author’s writing process. The outlines, drafts, research is not all that unlike my own, just with a longer writing process spread out over time. I think what we talked about in class connects really well to the ideas that you bring up in your blog, Kihan. It does seem to me, that although Joy Kogawa’s work is fictional, we can see aspects of her life scattered throughout the pages. After reading your blog, I reflected on something I saw at the RBSC library that made me think more in depth about this idea. One of the fonds that I was looking at showed a rejection letter by Oberon press. The letter was writing to Joy Kogawa, informing her, that they thought she was using her book more “As a vehicle to describe that period of history than to tell a story”, “the reader isn’t really ever aware of a story” and that “there is not enough emphasis on key elements that constitute a novel”. While this may be true in a way, (she does include several historical texts showing the role of the Canadian government in the Japanese peoples oppression) her novel, as you mention in your blog is reminiscent of her own life. As such I would disagree with the people at Oberon press. Since the book is about opening up the conversation on Japanese oppression in Canada, it must have a historical element to be able to create conversation. That being said, her novel also connects to her own life in many ways (like the example you give) through this historical content. The addition of Joy Kogawa’s imagination in creating a work of fiction (as we see in the fonds) shows that her book is more than historical. It embodies her own experience as well, forming a narrative of memory that is fictional, but that deals with important historical issues. To answer to your question, Kihan, as to whether her authority would change if she had not been a victim herself, I would say yes. Not only that, but her whole writing process would have changed, and the fonds she would have collected would have been totally different, resulting In a book (as you put it) that would offer a different glimpse into a different mind.

Here is the letter that I mentioned:                               

Hey Carolina, cool blog post! I like how you brought Sacco’s somewhat recent work into the context of our class, and I think it strongly adds to the discussion we were having about whether Sacco’s book was feminist or sexist. About the image you included in your blog, I realize now that my last blog post was totally off topic as I completely forgot to write about the assigned topic (whoops! I’m sorry Dr. Luger!), but it just so happens that it connects to what I did write about, so I will continue. In my last blog post I talked about Professor Erickson’s rant and the connections it made to Joy Kogawa’s themes of fear and discrimination in her book Obasan. I would be really interested to see what Erickson would have to say about Joe Sacco’s work, specifically the comic that you included as it portrays our rush to generalize everything in this day and age, and how we are not so different in our world view than the terrorists. I love your line: “the Eurocentric-tinted glasses will fog up everything”. I think this is so true, and that it may even fog up our glasses so much that we cannot see what we are doing anymore, especially when we blindly follow the media’s message that ‘Islam promotes violence’, or something similar. The last image on Sacco’s comic page speaks volumes about this situation we find ourselves in. His line “certainly something was deeply wrong with the killers – then let us drive them from their homes and into the sea… For that is going to be far easier than sorting out how we fit in each other’s world” for me represents these glasses that you talk about. I think they fog up everything, because they don’t allow us to see ourselves from an objective perspective anymore. The interesting question for me is: how do we take them off? For as Sacco has pointed out, it certainly won’t be the acts of terrorists that do it, and (ironically) for that matter it won’t be ourselves either. We must then find some way to wipe off these glasses, to de-fog them, before we even attempt to take them off. I think that you might have keyed into how Sacco was using his comic works to show the women of Gorazde, as not less than men, but as humans, and therefore start to wipe off these old, foggy glasses that we are wearing.

Hey Jaqueline, I really enjoyed reading your blog, and thought you brought some great points to the table in the way that we read Sacco’s graphic novel. While your ideas of Sacco’s attempt to humanize the people of Gorazde through US cultural hegemony really resonated with me, I disagree that he chose this in a stylistic sense in order to humanize them. I think that the problem of looking at the Gorazdian situation through a cultural relativist perspective, while ideal, is not realistic. I understand that your argument here is purely theoretical and does not say that Sacco should or shouldn’t have written his book the way that he did. I also don’t want people to think that I support a US or Eurocentric hegemonic view of other cultures or nation to nation conflicts, but I think that for the Gorazdians, it is sometimes not possible to view them from a subaltern viewpoint. Their culture is being attacked and persecuted with hatred, and it can be hard for them to associate pride with their culture because of that. While I don’t doubt that they have pride for their religion and culture (and this is shown in his book), it is not hard to see why they attach themselves so closely to the American values and forces that are their only lifeline for support, and the only thing that is keeping themselves, and their culture alive. I think that while you are right in saying that Sacco’s portrayal of this leads to interesting and troublesome effects of cultural hegemony, he also cannot portray them as human without insinuating the profound effect that the west has on these people, even if it does take away somewhat from the sense of their individuality that you get from the graphic novel.

Hello fellow classmates, this week’s blogs are all about Obasan and the RBSC, and it’s quite fascinating what you all have to say. Kaveel immediately brought to my attention that first and foremost our interaction with the primary sources at the the RBSC is the first time most of us have had the opportunity to engage primary sources. We live in a very well informed age with lots and lots of secondary sources, but primary sources are still hard to find, and the knowledge we gain from them is quite amazing. Kaveel showed many examples of the Kogawa fond, but perhaps the most fascinating of them was a paper titled “SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS.” This was fascinating to me and Kaveel because as Kaveel put it “this artifact shower Kogawa’s train of thought especially the argument she hopes to portray through her novel” which in essence is what the novel is boiled down. This paper showed Kogawa’s message and purpose in regards to the novel, and that is something truly amazing that we have the opportunity to peer into the purpose of the novel. Additionally it’s fascinating to actually look at the physical properties of what would become Obasan because for me personally I often struggle with the idea that anyone can create an actual book in stages, and that it in a sense doesn’t always exist. As Kihan put it “I was able to understand Obasan as a work fabricated out of someone’s subjectivity – a work that had to be physically created by a real, breathing, complex, thinking human being – and not just as a work that has always existed in its heralded and canonized form,” which is something I and I’m assuming others struggle with. Everyone acknowledged how going to the RBSC extends the works of Obasan past what we perceive it to be as a book. We see it’s roots and the many different directions it might take but doesn’t, we see why Kogawa made the decisions she made, if reading Obasan is a conversation with Kogawa then we are extending that conversation into the heart and soul of what Kogawa is trying to tell us. Many people, including Jennifer, noted how different the reality of writing and archiving is now to how it was, and how seemingly unimportant things are actually quite enlightening. Jennifer put perfectly when she said “I did not realize how every little piece of object/paper can be important,” and it’s true every single piece of material that influenced and led Kogawa to the final product of Obasan is incredibly important from a literary sense, a historical one, and a sociological perspective. Seeing these fonds helped the class see how the works of an author are living breathing pieces of literature, even if they aren’t the finished product. The fonds showed the class how much work truly goes into the production of a book such as Obasan, especially when it comes to creation of the characters in the book. In Obasan the story is not a traditional character-plot story, but a collage of news, letters, moments of trauma, conversations with the self and with others. Through this collage you see a diverse group of people with extremely authentic characteristics, and through the fonds we got to see how Kogawa formed this intricately complex individuals. Nicola notes the authenticity that Kogawa has throughout the book and throughout the fond, everything about the story and her life is authentic. In fact the collage of different mediums which make up the book, whether real or not, are incredibly authentic and create a real sense of the situation back in the 1940’s. Kogawa, as our class has noted, took the responsibility of giving voice to the silent suffering of Japanese Canadians and did it expertly, she wrote empathetically about those who would wish to silently get over the trauma and those that wish to scream and shout about the injustice. She doesn’t act as arbiter over all Japanese Canadians, but as one of the thousands that suffered, giving voice to those that couldn’t speak. I hope you enjoyed this, because I enjoyed your blogs, until next time.

Hello Class!

The visit to the Rare Books and Special Collections library was the topic of discussion for this week’s blogs. The class blogs were supposed to be about sharing the experience of our class field trip to the Rare Books and Special collection library at Irvin K Barber Library where we analyzed Joy Kogwa’s fond. Even though it was a field trip and we went there as a class, it was interesting to see how everyone learnt something different and had their own ‘individual’ experience despite of the whole experience being shared ‘collectively’ by the class.

Deigo’s usage of the term ‘forgetting as humiliated silence was attention-grabbing. He also made a bold statement about the ignorance of the ‘traumatic’ Japanese- Canadian’s history by the Canadian schools in reference to that term. Deigo’s opinions shared a common ground with Rachael, as she also feels the importance of educating students about the history of Japanese Canadians in order to preserve this important historical struggle. I could relate a lot to Mariana’s blog as the ‘shady’ history of Canada was shocking for international students like us. We were only aware about the existence of ‘multiculturalism’ of Canada but little did we know about its traumatic history. While all these blogs focused on the ignorance of the history of Japanese Canadians, other blogs focused more on the experience of analyzing the Joy Kogwa’s fond and their ‘individual’ views about her fond.

Kaveel in his blog, referred his experience of being able to analyze ‘primary’ sources for the first time as ‘eye-opening’. He also shared pictures of various artifacts which was stimulating especially the brainstorming sheet titled ‘’SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS” which was compared to a scholarly article by Kaveel comprising of arguments, knowledge deficit and contribution to the larger argument.  Carolina expresses her disappointment at  Joy Kogwa’s fond, providing more information about the author’s work and not the author. I also appreciate how she got inspired by the field trip and decided to personalize her blog that represents the ‘real’ her and shared a picture of her bulletin board (I personally loved it, check it out!).

Overall everyone did a great job on their blogs and I found all of them really thought-provoking. The blog posts this week were good end for this semester.

Good luck on the short essay and the finals!

See you all next semester!

-Priya

Hello fellow classmates, while our class was extensively analyzing Joy Kogawa’s archives it brought up a very engaging discussion in the blog posts this week. Even though my classmates were assigned the same questions to write about everyone’s perceptions were very enchanting. It was great to see how my peers felt about how the Japanese-Canadians were treated.

Nicola, and Marina both touch upon the idea of how Obasan is fiction but entails real life events. Nicola suggests that the idea of authenticity led Kogawa to mix history, testimony, and fiction. In similarity, Marina demonstrates that even though the book is a work of fiction, it is based on real events and definitely has something to share with a reader. With this impression Marina believes this is why Canada chose to keep the trauma of the Japanese-Canadians in silence. This correlates to several students who pondered the idea of forgetting trauma through different mediums. This concept was significantly focused on throughout the term so it was very interesting to see my classmate’s interpretations. Nico, conveys how the voice of silence plays a big factor in the novel. He expresses that “as a sharp voice in contrast to the silence expressed in the novel and that there is a silence that cannot speak. Marina reveals through her blog post that Kogawa “deliberately chose to forget some events and to remember others [and] the connection between things (artifacts) and particular events is obvious”. She illustrates how the archives of Kogawa were significant towards the idea of forgetting. However, Diego took a different turn and expresses on the notion of forgetting. He compared the trauma Kogawa faced through “forgetting and humiliated silence which essential means to forget something (usually traumatic) by drawing the public’ attention to other things”. He further emphasizes that Canada makes their students forget about the dark history about Japanese- Canadians. Similarly to Diego, Rachel also conveys, “if we do not educate children [about] what happened in the past, this part of history would be completely wiped clean”.

In a different manner, a few students blog post focused on the generally conception of memory. Nicola talked about memory and the important responsibility of coalescing all these memories and facts and words into just the right story that could let the largely untold story of Japanese Canadian internment be heard by a larger audience. Jacqueline discusses the field of memory studies, which also “combats that black and white, thought process by exploring the formation of memories on both the individual and collective level”. As well, Kaveel brings in the idea of how cultural memory is like a narrative lenses where it plays a prominent role in the novel.

Lastly, I though Kendall, Carolina, and Jennifer’s blog did a wonderful job with their unique post. I loved how Kendall was asking her readers question in her blog. It made me more engaged to read her post and ponder the thoughts she was conveying. Carolina on the other hand, goes off her own experiences. She explains that she has so many old journals, half-finished papers, discarded short stories, pertaining her own opinion about how she could never let go of her personal belongings like Kogawa. Finally, I would like to comment on how Jennifer talks about how the usage of technology is important. Isabelle brought up this concept in our class but Jennifer does a brilliant job of going into detail about how collecting archives would be the increase usage of technology.

Once again I really enjoyed reading everyone’s blogs and I wish everyone the best of luck on their finals and hope you all have a great winter break! 🙂

For the last two weeks our ASTU class has been reading two astonishing books – Safe Area Gorazde, a graphic narrative written by Joe Sacco and a novel Obasan by Joy Kogawa. In this overview I will mainly focus on blogs discussing Sacco’s book.

Joe Sacco’s book Safe Area Gorazde depicts the events taking place in Bosnia during the War of 1992-95. As Peijia notices in her blog Sacco uses a different way of portraying people compared to Satrapi: ‘this, in turn with its raw and realistic drawing style, made me (the reader) feel a lot more ‘stunned’ by the narrative.’ Focusing on the Sacco’s style it’s necessary to mention his use of black and white as well. In the same way Satrapi used this minimalistic technique to draw attention to the event and the story rather than to a picture itself, Sacco also makes his characters (who are real people) more realistic and ‘alive’.

However, the drawing technique is not the only way Sacco makes a reader more connected with a story. As Jacqueline says in her blog: ‘Sacco shows the reader how human, and also American, the people he meets are by showcasing their more materialistic sides.’ Indeed through his book the author lets us know about Gorazdians’ desires and feelings, which are not different from people’s desires all over the world. In his blog Diego writes: ‘it shows the reader that those living in Gorazde, despite having less-than ideal living conditions, are humans just like you and me. They want peace, they want to travel around the world, and some of them also want to buy a new pair of jeans.’ These human desires give a reader an opportunity to understand better the characters and as Carolina notices they ‘turn numbers into people’.

Another important topic discussed in our class was the way women were portrayed in the book. When it came to this issue our class split in two. Some people consider the name ‘silly girls’ rather offensive and sexist. Others can explain it as another way of showing the humanity of those women. As Carolina says: ‘Sacco chose to represent certain women as “silly”, because some humans are silly. Silliness is human.’

To sum up, the way Sacco choses to pull personal stories of people out of the numbers can in some ways be provocative. However, exactly this technique creates a tapestry of stories that portrays the history of Gorazde.

Mariana Drok

Wow! Hello ASTU, I just want to start off by commemorating my peers for their fascinating blog posts this week! This week there were many engaging discussions on all three of the works we have covered in ASTU thus far: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco and Obasan by Joy Kogawa. While there was lots of talk regarding the powerful effects of the very style and genres of these works, what really fascinated me in this week’s blogs – and thus what this class blog will focus on – was the amount of politically charged discourse provoked by these works (I guess we really are university students now!).

To start, many of my peers discussed the problems of ethnocentrism, particularly its affect on the way that stories are told, on the way readers interpret these stories and, more generally, on the way that a society views another culture’s practices. For example, while Jacqueline acknowledges the importance of Sacco’s humanization of Gorazdean citizens in her blog, she further espouses that she finds it problematic that Sacco does so by essentially likening them to Americans. Jacqueline remarks on the historically harmful practices of interpreting the world from an ethnocentric – and largely Eurocentric – position, noting how Sacco seems to infer that what makes people all of the world collectively “human” is our shared American desires for material goods and popular culture. I was really struck by Jacqueline’s powerful remark that “Personhood shouldn’t be a product of cultural hegemony.”

Interestingly enough, Carolina takes this idea of ethnocentrism in a different direction. She comments on how the criticisms expressed in our class discussions regarding Sacco’s portrayal of Gorazdean women – in particular, his representation of the happiness that these women seem to find when in the kitchen – are largely derived from our ethnocentric position as Westerners. Carolina then questions whether it is within our authority to judge another cultures as “sexist”, or if by doing so we are claiming to know a moral objectivism that doesn’t exist in reality and thus merely imposing our Western values on other cultures in a hegemonic fashion.

This highly complex and loaded issue is interestingly enough what I am writing my current political science paper on. Without getting too far into it, I am discussing the fundamental idealist versus realist debate in the field of International Relations (IR), which largely comes down to whether or not morality should have a role in the international sphere, and if so, what system this so called universal morality should be based on. The realist camp criticizes the idealist camp for its tendency to try to impose largely Western values across the world, claiming that this approach to IR ultimately shares too many affinities with imperialistic and hegemonic practices to be called truly altruistic.

This sort of debate is happening on a micro level right on our blogs and in our classroom conversations! How cool! I think Carolina’s point is situated more in the realist camp, at least it is my interpretation that she is saying that we shouldn’t forget that we are reading these works in a Canadian classroom and that we need to transcend past our ethnocentrism in order to avoid a sort of condescending attitude.

Additionally, in his blog, Sam also unravels the complications of having Sacco – a Western reporter – telling the stories of the Gorazdeans caught in the Bosnian War. Does Sacco impose his own Western values in his telling of the story in Gorazde? Jacqueline’s post seems to be congruent with this position. Furthermore, are our readings of these texts influenced by our Western ethnocentrism as Carolina’s blog suggests?

Interestingly enough, Imaan’s blog surrounding the global infringement of women’s rights can also be thought of in relation to these complicated IR debates. Imaan discusses the ethical problems surrounding the subordination of women following the Iranian revolution, in particular referencing the experience of Marji being forced to wear the veil in Persepolis, as well as surrounding the cultural practice of female genital mutilation in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

However, Carolina poses the question – albeit in reference to Joe Sacco’s representation of Gorazdean women – “We are not part of their culture, so can we really judge?”. Is judging these other cultural practices just an extension of our Western hegemonic ethnocentrism? Or, as Imaan seems to argue, is it our right to formulate opinions against cultural practices in other parts of the world when they seem to infringe on the human rights that most of us seem to accept as universal.

This issue becomes even more complicated when considering Ina’s October 15^th blog (whoops I went back a month but it was too relevant to leave out!). Ina draws similarities between Marji’s experience of being forced to wear the veil by the Islamic government and Stephan Harper’s condemning of the Niqab. In his supposed defense of women’s rights, Ina poses the question whether Harper is practicing ethnocentrism by critiquing another culture’s practice through measuring it against his own “Canadian” values.

Additionally, furthering this conversation of the global imposition of Western values, Nico discusses the elements of American cultural imperialism depicted in Persepolis. Nico discusses how Marji seems to increasingly strive towards being a part of Western American culture by surrounding herself by idols such as Michael Jackson and by adorning herself in Nike shoes and a denim jacket – a classic American symbol. Nico seems to be questioning the cultural chokehold that America seems to have on the world, using Marji’s experience to exhibit the reaches of cultural imperialism.

However, although there were lots of criticisms in this week’s blogs regarding the seeming Westernization of the world and the reaches of Western ethnocentrism embedded within the works we have been studying and within our interpretations of these works, what is even more interesting is breaking down what “the West” really is. In both Safe Area Gorazde and Persepolis, the West (even if partially satirically) is depicted as a place of freedom. This is evident in the depiction of the Gorazdean citizens clinging to Sacco’s affiliation with America, as America to them juxtaposes the feeling of entrapment that they experienced from the crushing isolation of Gorazde throughout the war. Yet, as Kaveel and Dione point out, these characterizations of the West are largely reflective of how the West has made itself out to be perceived and perhaps not how it actually is. They discuss this in reference to Joy Kogawa’s Obasan, in which the historical systemic racism of Canada is exposed in relation to the treatment of Japanese Canadians during (and beyond) the Second World War. Kaveel remarks how the popular considerations of Canada as being a multicultural place has perhaps been influenced by “organized forgetting” in that our education system does not justly teach us about these elements of Canada’s past. Likewise, Dione comments that in her international school in Shanghai they were taught using US textbooks that largely framed Western countries as “good guys” and countries like Japan as being “bad guys”. To have this sentiment subverted by Obasan is to have our global conceptions of the West depolarized from its place of moral supremacy and thus perhaps weakens the West’s hegemonic domination over what “should” be considered as the global cultural norms.

To conclude generally, it seems that one has to be mindful of cultural imperialism and Western ethnocentrism, which includes being aware of the position from which we are studying these works in ASTU. However, complete cultural relativism – that cultural practices should be evaluated outside the bounds of any principles of universal moral standards – should also be questioned. Thus, this week’s blog discussions raise many complicated questions that we will hopefully explore further as we continue on in ASTU.

Thanks to my peers for all of your excellent discussions this week – your thinking keeps me thinking!

While everyone is busy with upcoming papers and dare I say, finals, our ASTU class was able to read and discuss Joe Sacco’s graphic narrative Safe Area Goražde and Joy Kogawa’s non fiction, Obasan. Whilst reading all my classmate’s blogs, I was able to view these novels in multiple perspectives. I feel as if I am invading everyone’s mind which is very intriguing. Joe Sacco was definitely the hot topic of the week in ASTU.

Carolina ,Isabelle, Kristen, and Rachel discusses about Sacco’s perspective on women. Carolina and Isabelle has contrasting points. Firstly, Isabelle sees Sacco as sexist and degrades the women in the chapter “silly girls.” Isabelle is strongly against Sacco’s portrayal of these young women and is disappointed to see how they are not redeemed later on in the following chapters, whereas for example, the character, Riki redeems his ‘silliness’ throughout the chapters. Contrastingly, Carolina argues that Sacco draws out the Bosnian culture. She suggests that it is not fair to compare the Bosnian culture to American culture as we all have different ways in life. Kristen explains how Sacco is trying to demonstrate that even with the war going on, women are still ‘real people’ with dreams. On Rachel’s blog, she similarly has the same view as Kristen. She argues that the girls are simply only sixteen year olds and of course they would be thinking about the latest fashion trends and not education during a war.

Both Kendall and Diego in their blog posts, highlight the “15 minutes” which Sacco explains about. They stress that many stories by reporters are based of off 15 minutes and how so much is missing and or misleading. Kendall praises Sacco for being able to report stories based off his encounters that are far longer than 15 minutes.

A few of my classmates wrote about the other novel our ASTU class was required to read, Obasan. A recurring theme I found throughout the blog posts is remembering. In Peijia’s blog, she depicts at how the literautre, Obasan is a technology of memory for her. She compares her grandmother to Obasan and how their houses is what identifies them. On the other hand, Taylor argues in her blog that Kogawa shows the protagonist, Naomi’s, different stages of remembering. Taylor notices that the novel jumps back and forth with time and how the character, Naomi, develops due to the new information she receives throughout the novel. In Kaveel’s blog, he realizes the little knowledge Canadians have of the Japanese-Canadians during World War II. He questions as to why Canada chooses to erase certain national memories while many are already aware of them. He argues that our education system needs to mention all the history that there is that makes up Canada despite of how negative they may be.

With all the knowledge and history that is being discovered in the two literatures, it is important to realize to not believe everything you hear in the news or textbooks. The two brave authors, have written these literatures to further educate the readers. Whilst reading all the blog posts, it has helped me open my eyes and realize how much we don’t know about the world and we must be aware of them. It is amazing to see all the knowledge my ASTU class collectively. It was a pleasure reading all the posts!!

Jennifer Lai

Hello ASTU 100!

With the first two and a half months of university under our belts, I can’t help but push pause and wonder where all the time has gone! At just around this same time last year, I remember the long and grueling process of browsing through several universities here in Canada and the United States, completing application form after application form, writing thought-provoking thesis statements, and on top of that, engaging in graduation festivities. It is safe to say that our dreams have come true, we’ve made it – and this is only the beginning. I would like to begin this class blog by saying that it has been such an honor getting to know many of you and look forward to what is to come.

Now, enough with the warm and fuzzies. On a more serious note, this week’s blogs were extremely intriguing and definitely required a lot of critical thinking. It was great to read about what you had to say on various perspectives and themes encompassed throughout our ASTU class!

With our class discussions in previous weeks analyzing Marjane Satrapi’s clever use of style and representation of trauma in her graphic narrative and with Hilary Chute’s article to add an extra perspective, it seemed apt that it was a popular topic amongst blogs. With Diego building upon Scott Cloud’s coined “amplification through simplification,” he argues that there is this beautiful simplicity in the monochrome minimalist technique, especially in relation to emphasizing trauma. To go even further into Diego’s argument, Mariana adds another brilliant quote to the table, this time from John Maeda who says: “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful”. When looking at Persepolis, Mariana brings a great thought and truth we have never really discussed by pointing out, “Persepolis is a unique and authentic piece of art. As the majority of people tend to judge a book by its cover, it is essential to tell that the cover of Persepolis [:] The Story of a Childhood is the most colorful part of the book. The bright red background attracts a reader and scares them at the same time. The aggressiveness it holds serves as a pre-introductory to the story. The events described in the book are serious and traumatic.” When looking at trauma from an up close and personal point of view, we must refer to Peijia’s blog, in which she recounts and draws from past experiences a time in her life where she was able to witness deaths of several animals at a young age. “I remember thinking that [the] whole thing was very disgusting, and how said it must have been for the animal to die…Looking back now, if I were to draw what I saw as a 6/7 year old, my visual representation would not be more than a scraggly shape of a chicken with X-crossed eyes and a spew of spiky blood coming from its neck…it was hard for me to even imagine drawing realistically because it was an act you do not particularly want to remember”. This childish innocence combined with naiveness through the stylistic representation of monochromatic trauma is what makes Persepolis so unique itself. From what we know and have analyzed so far, we know that Satrapi’s graphic narrative does a great amount of justice through her abstract illustrations of trauma, but this also raises the question: Does the power of written text hold the same water?

Through the process of studying and linking works from various outlets of art, including literature, Kihan finds parallels to Persepolis via comparison and contrast to Canadian author Anne Michels’ 1996 award-winning novel Fugitive Pieces around the recurring theme of unspeakableness of past trauma! Kihan stresses that, “despite the fact that the highly visual, graphic narrative form of Persepolis and the highly dense poetic/prose form of Fugitive Pieces are on opposite ends of the form spectrum, the works remain comparable in many ways…while Satrapi reclaims abstract illustration to represent trauma, Michaels reclaims the power of the written word to do so…through the structure, syntax and diction of Fugitive Pieces itself…Michaels’ use of language in Fugitive Pieces serves to invert the legitimacy of the popular sentiment that ‘there are no words’ to describe the absurdity and horror of the Holocaust”. To answer and address the previous question posed above, I would concur in saying that the depiction of trauma through specific mediums can be justly accepted through visual and verbal representations. It is up to the author to manipulate and take it upon themselves to portray trauma, but most take into account the power in which trauma can alter the audience’s perspective. This style in which Satrapi in particular chooses to connect with his/her audience in terms of Persepolis is one that has a big play in part to relatability of a childhood.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood is a graphic narrative about the daily life of growing up and finding yourself in a world full of contradictions. “We all had a childhood,” Kristen writes. What makes Persepolis so relatable, regardless of culture, race, location, or gender is childhood. Because “childhood” and all that encompasses these broad years may look completely different from person to person, it makes our story all the more authentic and unique! Our story is what sets us apart and makes us stand out, yet, it can strikingly bring communities together. Though no childhood is completely identical, we can still draw multiple parallels in culture in society that overlap our own. Kristen further reasons, “While we all have different experiences and cultures, we all had a childhood, we all grew up and navigating the complexities of life. More specifically, the commonness between all children, every childhood, gives Persepolis to act as a memoir, a tender reflection of childhood and allow each and every reader to connect to Marji in a very personal way.” With the notion of a “dominant culture” of that pertaining to western society, it seems as if this Americanization of western ideologies have unconsciously seeped through the walls of a very traditional Iranian culture through the advancement of globalization and cultural imperialism (Guppy and Ritzer 136), and have entered Marji’s own little world! I can very much relate to what Kristen suggests in her blog post and it makes me all the more aware of the similarities Marji and I have in common: the ongoing pursuit of finding yourself in the ever-changing cultural and societal norms that change in the blink of an eye.

Once again, I had such a blast reading all of your blogs and do regret not being able to mention many of them – please excuse the long post as it is. However, do keep an eye out in the “comment sections” of your blogs where I will further continue this dialogue!

Have a great week and see you all in the hours to come!

Nico Jimenez