Hello readers!

In last week’s ASTU class, we talked about philosophy scholar Judith Butler’s article Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect. In the article, she argues people value the life of “we” higher than the life of “others” (they define “we” as the community they belong to according on their identity). Moreover, “When a population appears as a direct threat of my life, they do not appear as ‘lives’，but as the threat to lives ”.

In this blog, I’d like to talk about how Joe Sacco’s narrative method in Safe Area Goražde correspond to Butler’s idea and reminds readers the gravity of the lives of people in Goražde.

From page 92 to 93, seven dead bodies are portrayed on the panel. Edin introduces them one by one: their name, their relationship with Edin, etc. However, in the news we read every day, those people will be described as a number. People in outside world won’t value their life as much as lives of people they know or people who live in their countries. Through Edin’s narrative, Joe Sacco remind us people who are killed in Gorazde share many things common with us. Their lives should be valued by the media and people outside Gorazde. Also, Joe Sacco portrays the dead bodies very precisely. He even adds Edin’s description like “Senad’s finger had been cut from one hand, the other was shut tight”. Through the condition of the dead body, we can imagine the torture those people received from the Serbs. Before the war, the two sides lived together friendly. This reminds me of the Butler’s idea of vulnerability: humans are vulnerable to the symbolic system where we act and define ourselves.

This is a rough idea of the essay that I will write. I will revise it before I start writing the essay.

Thanks for reading my blog.