Remediating Photography in Second-Generation Graphic Narratives: Haptic Imaginaries and Genealogies

In this article we explore the complexities of using intermediality in a subgenre of the graphic novel: the graphic memoir. More specifically, our corpus includes three second-generation graphic memoirs that all incorporate reproductions of (family) photographs, personal documents, and archival material: Palacinche. Storia di un’esule fiumana by Caterina Sansone and Alessandro Tota (2012), and Mendel’s Daughter. A Memoir (2006) and Two Cents Plain. My Brooklyn Boyhood (2010), both by Martin Lemelman. Although the phenomenon of intermediality is often approached from a semiotic perspective, our analysis reveals that this approach does not suffice to capture the complexities of intermediality within the second-generation graphic memoirs included in our corpus. Drawing on material approaches to visual culture and photography as developed in the domain of anthropology, we address the haptic engagement and creative investment through which the intermedial configurations eventually produce the affective attachments that the narrators seek to establish and share with the world. Thanks to these haptic attachments, the nostalgia evoked in the narratives is converted into a present feeling of affective connection with and belonging to a recovered family history. To that aim, the visual dimension of the three graphic narratives is haptically broadened so as to restore paths toward memory, thus welcoming a felt, and truly embodied, experience of other people’s history and past.

Jaar van publicatie:2022

Toegankelijkheid:Open