Resistance Comix
Narrative, Activism, and History
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3983442 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rob Kristofferson (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 86 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 177-189 |
| Publication date | 2020-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Labour / Le Travail (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0700-3862 • E-ISSN: 1911-4842 |
| Publisher | Athabasca University Press (PUBLISHER • CA) |
| DOI | 10.1353/llt.2020.0045 |
| OpenAlex | W3108089487 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Resistance Comix:Narrative, Activism, and History Rob Kristofferson (bio) Norah Bowman and Meg Braem, art by Dominique Hui, Amplify: Graphic Narratives of Feminist Resistance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019) Graphic History Collective with Althea Balmes, Gord Hill, Orion Keresztesi, and David Lester, Direct Action Gets the Goods: A Graphic History of the Strike in Canada (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2019) Graphic History Collective and David Lester, 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2019) Jamie Michaels and Doug Fedrau, Christie Pits (Winnipeg: Dirty Water Comics, 2019) Graphic history has emerged as an increasingly popular form of public history in recent years, particularly among historians interested in examining social issues through a medium that is accessible and engaging to more general reading audiences. Graphic histories focused on labour history and social justice issues more generally comprise a particularly strong core among these works.1 The four recent graphic histories under review here show some [End Page 177] of the wide diversity of ways that authors of graphic histories can approach and frame their subject matter into narratives that engage broader audiences while also giving voice to the communities they represent. As activist works, they demonstrate ways in which the past can be used to inform and provide inspiration and strategic thinking for struggles in the present day. Importantly, they do this through comic art's unique ability to build a critical consciousness in its reader through the act of closure: the positioning of the reader as an active participant in the construction of the narrative by necessitating that they complete gaps and thereby co-create meaning, in the gutters between frames and elsewhere. But these graphic works demonstrate too how the intentional – and in some cases increasingly creative – use of primary historical sources can heighten such acts of closure. Feminist scholar Norah Bowman, playwright Meg Braem, and artist Dominique Hui present a series of vignettes of both collective and individual feminist resistance in Amplify: Graphic Narratives of Feminist Resistance. Bowman worked with Braem to develop historical narratives into a script that Hui then put into graphic form. With a stated ambition of appealing to a diverse readership, Bowman's introduction devotes time and care to explaining some key feminist concepts to readers of the volume, including intersectionality, white supremacy, heteronormativity, capitalism, feminist resistance, direct action, radical inclusion, and transnational feminism. It focuses the volume on grassroots organizing led by those experiencing oppression and lacking institutional supports, an approach that Bowman hopes will inspire readers "to feed your community conversations about feminism."2 A second hope is to provide inspirational stories that illustrate the centrality of relationship building as a key feminist practice in building resistance. Bowman also explains how the stories profiled in the volume focus on feminist direct action, while also usefully critiquing the jaded detractors of those tactics who fault them for falling short of their stated goals rather than appreciating their still vital [End Page 178] capacity-building functions. The introduction covers considerable conceptual ground, though in language perhaps more familiar to the academic, thereby limiting its accessibility. The core of the book comprises seven chapters that profile notable acts of feminist resistance. While four of these chapters focus on individuals – Leymah Gbowee, Laxmi Narayan Tripahi, Kathleen Cleaver, and Harisa Walia – the authors succeed in contextualizing each as an adjunct to the collective activism of which they were a part, rather than as merely "hero stories." The other three chapters focus directly on collective feminist resistance – Pussy Riot, Idle No More, and Rote Zora – with the hope that each will "inform and inspire our readers to look for similar collectives in their own communities."3 While it includes Canadian examples (Idle No More, Walia, and, to a degree, Tripathi), the book also extends its geographic sweep to include resistance activities in the Russian Federation (Pussy Riot), Liberia and Ghana (Gbowee), India (Tripahi), the United States (Cleaver), and Germany (Rote Zora). Each chapter begins with a graphic narrative sequence ranging from 10 to 21 pages, followed by a short essay providing further context, a short series of discussion questions, a list of research questions and activities, and a list of suggestions
Art · Comics · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Public history · Reading (process · Resistance (ecology · Social history (medicine · Sociology · Visual arts · Canadian Identity and History · Comics and Graphic Narratives · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |