“Nazi history in the gutter: Comics as a medium of remembrance” – Conference – May 2023

The University of Art and Design Linz’s annual conference on May 5 is dedicated to the “Day against Violence and Racism in memory of the victims of National Socialism”. The 2023 conference program focused on: “Nazi History in the Gutter. Comics as a Medium of Remembrance”.

Project partners Drs. Véronique Sina and Andrea Löw presented at the conference in the panel session “Speech Balloon” moderated Angela Koch, focusing on: “Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling – On the potential of comics for remembering, visualising and communicating the Shoah”. 

Andrea Löw, Angela Koch, and Véronique Sina(l-r).

The full panel recording can be viewed and downloaded here:
https://dorftv.at/video/42220

More information about the 2023 conference:
https://www.kunstuni-linz.at/en/universitaet/organisation/institute/medien/aesthetik-und-pragmatik-audiovisueller-medien/tagungen/ns-geschichte-im-rinnstein 

The conference was hosted at the University of Art and Design Linz on May 4 and 5, 2023. It examined the processing of Nazi crimes and the Second World War in the medium of comics/graphic novels, with panels analyzing and discussing comics about concentration camps, memory culture projects such as the survival stories of children, perpetrators, resistance and partisans, the internment of Japanese in the USA and the current discussions about Art Spiegelman’s MAUS. A multi-perspective and gender-sensitive approach is important to us. The pedagogical/didactic use of comics and graphic novels in schools and in educational work will also be addressed. A particular focus of the conference is on comics from and about Austria and Austrian protagonists. The conference is aimed at all comic fans, especially those interested in the culture of remembrance.