Max Bledstein

This paper examines the operation of allegory in the Iranian film Fish and Cat (Shahram Mokri, 2013). The approach to allegory results from an intersection between aesthetics evocative of the ta’ziyeh (an Iranian passion play), the use of sound, and generic traits of the horror film. I show how qualities of the ta’ziyeh make connections between the historical events the plays depict and present-day performance; likewise, the film’s fragmentary use of sound links the ostensibly living characters with their morbid fate. 
The sonic connection likens scenes from the film to what Adam Lowenstein calls the ‘allegorical moment’ of horror cinema: moments in which viewers, films, and historical events collide in disruptions of linear divides. Such disruptions within Fish and Cat result in part from a tension between the sense of linearity established by the film’s unbroken take and the resistance to linearity engendered by the repetition of images and dialogue throughout the film. This tension captures the liminality of the characters between life and death, as their inevitable murder at the hands of cannibalistic restaurant owners contrasts with their living presences throughout the film. The contrast allegorises the divide between Iranians of the First and Second Generations, who were between the ages of early adolescence and their twenties at the time of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, with those of the Third Generation, born just before or after the revolution. I argue that the interaction between the single take, formal elements of the horror film, and the ta’ziyeh in Fish and Cat engenders a unique example of allegorical horror.

Colson Whitehead’s fantastical depiction of the nineteenth century United States in The Underground Railroad (2016) uses tools of speculative fiction to demonstrate very real applications of Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1975). As much as Whitehead calls attention to societal truths unearthed by Foucault, the novel also highlights what Paul Gilroy refers to as a blindspot in Foucault’s chronicling of human development: the failure to adequately account for racism. Whitehead fills this gap with his imaginative vision, in which protagonist Cora travels a US where escaped slaves (such as Cora herself) can flee plantation owners via the literal railroad of the novel’s title: a train carrying people to ostensible freedom. As Cora rides across the country, she sees elements of the “carceral archipelago” Foucault describes, suggesting that so-called “free states” have more in common with plantations than she initially thinks. such elements stand out most in Whitehead’s South Carolina, in which blacks and whites live alongside one another. The novel quickly dispels illusions of harmony when Cora works as a living taxidermal model in the Museum of Wonders, where her and several other black women perform humiliating recreations of plantation life for white audiences. The state’s medical system for people of color involves sterilizing women and treating syphilis with sugar water. These institutions reflect a Foucauldian view of society. Like Foucault, Whitehead depicts medical treatment as an essential apparatus for state control of marginalized subjects. The Museum of Wonders evokes Tony bennett’s suggestion that the “exhibitionary complex” of museums in Victorian england fulfilled functions similar to what Foucault ascribes to prisons. I argue that Whitehead’s use of fantasy demonstrates understandings of surveillance described by Foucault while also adapting them to account for the particularities of American racism.

This paper examines the depiction of affect in The Hypo, Noah Van Sciv-er's 2012 graphic biography of Abraham Lincoln, in order to highlight its simultaneous continuation and demythologization of the hagiographic portrayal of Lincoln in American culture. Such a biomythology has been partially perpetuated by the long history of Lin-coln graphic biographies, including the portrayals featured in Abraham Lincoln: Life Story (1958) and All Aboard, Mr. Lincoln! (1959). In the first section of my paper, I analyze how Van Sciver's work continues this tradition of hagiography through thematic interests similar to the earlier comics. However, as I show in my paper's second section, Van Sciver contrasts his hagiographic insinuation with a simultaneous depiction of Lincoln as a youth too beset by insecurity to be the superhuman figure taught in American classrooms. The Hypo crafts this portrayal through visual motifs endemic to the grammar of comics. These motifs make Lincoln's emotional struggles visible rather than opaque and inaccessible, which foregrounds the feelings' existence and facilitates public understanding of them. Given that the foregrounding simultaneously counteracts the hagiography of Lincoln, The Hypo demonstrates graphic biography's capacity to counter the lionization of historical figures, since Van Sciver's counteraction happens through visual techniques irreplicable in any other form.

This presentation discusses the relationship between surrealistic imagery and wartime trauma in Aleksandar Zograf’s "Regards from Serbia," a collection of Zograf’s autobiographical comics. The text depicts life in Serbia from the beginning of the Croatian War of Independence to the aftermath of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia; Zograf narrates the events from a highly subjective perspective. Zograf conveys his subjectivity through surreal imagery, which contrasts with the unaffected prose: while captions convey a straightforward retelling of history through Zograf’s plain language, drawings depicting creatures with animal heads on human bodies (for example) introduce surrealism into the comics.
Thus, Zograf’s imagery conveys a crucial aspect of his story: the utter incomprehensibility of the horrors of war-torn Serbia, as well as the trauma they cause. Where text fails to capture the physical, emotional, and psychological violence Zograf witnesses and experiences, images convey his traumatized affect. As a result, "Regards from Serbia" demonstrates the capability of surrealistic imagery to convey the pain of wartime trauma, particularly in conjunction with the relatively realist verbal narration. I argue that Zograf’s work exemplifies how comics can be used to share the feelings of traumatic experiences with readers from a range of backgrounds.

This presentation examines the relationship between the use of color and characters’ embodiment of stereotypes in David Mazzucchelli’s “Asterios Polyp.” As Randy Duncan notes in “Image Functions: Shape and Color as Hermeneutic Images in ‘Asterios Polyp,’” colors, and the transitions in their usage over the course of the comic, illustrate the main characters’ psychological evolutions. Characters such as Asterios (a white male university professor who is not as smart as he thinks) and Hana (a shy Asian American woman who does not recognize her own brilliance) embody particular tropes, all of which depend on racial and gender identities. Mazzucchelli reifies the rigidity of these stereotypes by confirming the contrasts between characters through the colors depicting them. Although the typification may appear reductive, the clear boundaries it outlines between characters highlight their different experiences as a result of their identities. Shifts in the colors then show characters’ complexity beyond tropes, thereby emphasizing the distinctions between cultural experiences without limiting the possibility of transgression. Accordingly, this presentation argues that Mazzucchelli both highlights and challenges limitations of the stereotypes through color. As a result, Mazzucchelli’s artwork demonstrates a way in which the medium of comics can visually depict the complexities of identity.

This paper examines the use of stereotypes in "Woman Rebel," Peter Bagge’s 2013 graphic biography of birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, to analyze how Bagge appropriates historical comics images for political purposes. "Woman Rebel" features numerous caricatures of ethnic subalterns and women, all of which draw on popular cultural stereotypes. Bagge presents the stereotypes as part of his stylistic pastiche of older cartooning styles, which integrates the archaic visuals of dated comic strips into an extensively researched telling of Sanger’s life. Whereas Bagge’s biographical approach associates "Woman Rebel" with the techniques of contemporary non-fiction comics, the images evoke antiquated newspaper strips, including their problematic representations of racialized and gendered subjects. Given Fredric Jameson’s argument in "Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" that pastiche cannot be critical, a Jamesonian reading of "Woman Rebel" would suggest that Bagge merely reproduces the stereotypes without critiquing them. However, I argue that Bagge’s unflinching use of these depictions in a contemporary context reveals their absurdity and allows readers to understand the history of racist and misogynistic representation in comics.
Bagge thereby engages his readers in a pedagogical process, informing them of the discriminatory past of comics while simultaneously laying bare its representational shortcomings. Homi K. Bhabha’s discussion of stereotypes in “The Other Question” indicates the value of such a process, since Bhabha explains that the intimate understanding of stereotypes facilitates a deconstruction of their performance of cultural work. Following Richard Dyer’s "Pastiche," I suggest that the visual pastiche of "Woman Rebel" creates the possibility for the understanding Bhabha calls for by promoting an in-depth engagement with the original and pastiche texts.