Graphic Details Symposium

This past Sunday, a symposium was held at Yeshiva University Museum, discussing Jewish women who tell their stories using comix.

Below are the program details, as provided at the Jewish Arts Salon blog.

9:00 Registration; meet and greet

9:45 Introduction Sarah Lightman (University of Glasgow) and Rachel Lazin (Yeshiva University Museum)

SESSION ONE, 10:00 - 11:30

Panel I: The Sequential and the Scriptural
Chair: Karen Green (Columbia University Libraries)
Rebecca Levi (University of Virginia), “Image as Midrash: Text, Gender, Representation and Interpretation in The Comic Torah”
Sharon Rosenzweig (The Comic Torah) and Andrea Kantrowitz (Teacher’s College, Columbia University), “First We Do, Then We Understand: How God Became a Woman”

Panel II: Picturing the Body
Chair: Sasha Semach (Yeshiva University Museum)
Tahneer Oksman (CUNY Graduate Center), “Self-Creation in the Comics of Vanessa Davis”
Fabio Mourilhe (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), “The Graphic Memory of Aline Kominsky Crumb”
Jennifer Glaser (University of Cincinnati), “Graphic Inheritances: Jewish Women Comic Artists and the Jewish Body”
Joanne Leonard (University of Michigan), “Miscarriage made visual: Diane Noomin's Baby Talk and Joanne Leonard's Journal”

11:30 - 11.45 COFFEE BREAK (coffee/tea and light refreshments will be provided)

SESSION TWO, 11:45 - 1:15

Panel III: Drawing in Yiddish: A Schmooze with the Artists
Chair: Alisa Braun (Jewish Theological Seminary)
Leela Corman (Unterzakhn)
Liana Finck (Six Points Fellowship)

Panel IV: Between Diary and Memoir: Forming Comic Identities
Chair: Michael Green (Hershey Medical Center, Penn State University)
Natalie Pendergast (University of Toronto), “The ‘Outlaw’ Genre: Erasing the Line Between Form and Content in Ariel Schrag’s Comic Chronicles”
Heike Bauer (Birbeck College, University of London), “Graphic Lesbian Contiuum: Ilana Zeffren”
Judy Batalion (Writer and Performer, NYC and London), “The Comedy of Confession”
Evelyn Tauben (Independent Curator and Writer, Toronto) “Mi Yimtza? Finding Jewish Identity Through Women’s Autobiographical Art”

1:15 - 2:00 LUNCH (not provided)

SESSION THREE, 2:00 - 3:30

Panel V: Scrutinizing Israel: Travelers, Tourists, and Citizens
Chair: Amy Feinstein (Independent Scholar, New York City)
Maya Balakirsky Katz (Touro College), “Drawing Israel: Friedel Stern on the Sabra”
Maya Barzilai (University of Michigan), “Reframing the Holy Land: The ‘Adventures’ of
Jewish Women Cartoonists in Israel”

Panel VI: Trauma, Memory, and the Imaginary, Part I
Chair: Bella Brodzki (Sarah Lawrence College)
Ariela Freedman (Concordia University), “Charlotte Salomon: Graphic Artist”
Maeve Thompson-Starkey (University of Cambridge), “Berenice Eisenstein's I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors: Autobiographical Hybridity – the Possibilities of the Multinarrative”
Christopher Couch (University of Massachusetts at Amherst), “American Widow and Urban
Identity: Grief, Memory, and the Fabric of Multicultural New York”
Maya Hajdu (Concordia University), "Fragmented Memories in the Graphic Novel: Works by Miriam Katin, Berenice Eisenstein, and Miriam Libicki”

3:30 – 4:00 Viewing of Graphic Details Exhibition in Gallery

4:00 – 6:00 Artists in Conversation (two artist roundtables open to the public)
Introduction by Dan Friedman (The Jewish Daily Forward)

ROUNDTABLE I (4:00 – 5:00)

Trauma, Memory, and the Imaginary, Part II: An Artist Roundtable
Chair: Sarah Lightman (Graphic Details Curator, University of Glasgow)
Sarah Leavitt (Tangles)
Caryn Leschen (Aunt Violet Productions)
Janice Shapiro (Bummer)

ROUNDTABLE II (5:00 – 6:00)
A Conversation with Artists from the Graphic Details Exhibit
Chair: Michael Kaminer (Graphic Details Curator, The Jewish Daily Forward)