Course description
How is the artist to respond when the virtual becomes the real and when
words cannot carry the weight of trauma? How can an author avoid the
accusations of voyeuristic prurience or crass opportunism when he or she
attempts to re-present events of public violence? This multi-disciplinary
course examines work from a wide range of modes, including fiction, poetry,
film and graphic art, and looks at the difficulties of inscribing trauma and
the ethics and praxis of remembrance. Texts will include Spiegelman's Maus, Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in
Gaza, and Folman's Waltz
with Bashir. The key events covered on this course are the Holocaust,
the Indonesian genocide, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, 9-11, the Gulf War and
the conflict in the Balkans.
Course coordinator Prof. Shane A. Alcobia murphy, sam@abdn.ac.uk