Remediating photography in second-generation graphic narratives: haptic imaginaries and genealogies

Dupré, Natalie and Lanslots, Inge 2022. Remediating photography in second-generation graphic narratives: haptic imaginaries and genealogies. New Readings 18 , pp. 134-147. 10.18573/newreadings.122

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Abstract

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 (2012), by Caterina Sansone and Alessandro Tota, Mendel’s Daughter: A Memoir (2006), by Martin Lemelman, and Two Cents Plain: My Brooklyn Boyhood (2010), by the same author. 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.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Subjects:	C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CS Genealogy C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CT Biography N Fine Arts > NC Drawing Design Illustration N Fine Arts > NE Print media P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) T Technology > TR Photography
Publisher:	Cardiff University Press
ISSN:	2634-6850
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	9 June 2022
Date of Acceptance:	19 November 2021
Last Modified:	18 May 2023 20:31
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/150376

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