Panel: Telling Parkinson’s: Depictions of an Illness in Two Graphic Novels

Lisbeth Frølunde, Kimberly Myers*

*Corresponding author

Publikation: KonferencebidragKonferenceabstrakt til konferenceForskningpeer review

Abstract

Panel with two authors / presenters with two individual papers:

Lisbeth Frølunde, Associate Professor in Visual Communication, Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, Denmark
[email protected]

Kimberly R. Myers, Professor of Humanities and Medicine, Department of Humanities, Penn State College of Medicine, PA, USA
[email protected]


Summary
The proposed panel consists of two papers that have common themes and will be presented in an interactive presentation format, both with each other and with the audience.


Title and abstract of paper by Lisbeth Frølunde

Co-creating composite characters in a graphic novel about Parkinson’s dance: Potentials of an empathographic approach to storytelling


This paper explores the concept of empathography, a form of graphic pathography in which the relational aspects of creating specific empathic narrative positions are central to the process (Christensen-Strynø et.al., Squier and Krüger-Fürhoff, Lammer). Analysis explores the development of composite characters in a co-produced graphic novel about Parkinson’s dance experience, Mens vi bevæges, which emanated from “Dancing with Parkinson’s,” a research project based at Roskilde University, Denmark (2019-2022). The Danish original is expected to be published internationally in English: As We Move Along.

The co-production involved 3 university researchers (one of whom is presenting), a project coordinator, 28 individual co-researchers (people with Parkinson’s and their spouses) and a team of professional visual storytellers (two graphic novel illustrators, a graphic designer, and a manuscript consultant).

In accordance with aims in graphic and narrative medicine of telling (auto)biographical stories as a way of creating empathy among readers (e.g., Charon) the genre of graphic novel was chosen to communicate and highlight first-hand experiences of living with Parkinson’s (see Green and Myers, Krüger-Fürhoff, Shohl-Dunlap). However, the main characters in As We Move Along are “composite” characters developed during arts-based research activities; a few analytic examples are traced to illuminate the participatory, iterative processes of co-creating characters. Analysis stirs up overall questions about the relational ethics of co-production and representation in comics (e.g., Kuttner et.al., DeFalco), as well as the challenges of depicting an illness.
Discussion highlights two potentials. One is the poetic and aesthetic processing of personal experiences as composites (related to having Parkinson’s and being a caregiver); another is the critical potential of a “crip” empathographic approach for representing a continuum of embodied difference.


Title and abstract of paper by Kimberly Myers

Drawing on Experience: Rendering of a Self in Dunlap-Shohl’s My Degeneration

This paper functions in tandem with Dr. Frølunde’s paper, exploring the individually-authored graphic pathography My Degeneration: A Journey through Parkinson’s, by Peter Dunlap-Shohl, alongside the collectively-authored graphic novel As We Move Along, by Frølunde, et al. Projecting panels from the two books, I examine the multiple ways in which the books converge and diverge with regard to genre, content, style (both visual and verbal), structure, and tone. I also engage the audience in close looking/reading and interpretation of the images and pose questions about how such differences impact both the telling of illness and the receiving of illness stories. These questions and group reflections return us to the broader concepts of empathography and what it means to crip comics.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
Publikationsdato29 jun. 2022
StatusUdgivet - 29 jun. 2022
BegivenhedInternational Graphic Novel and Comics Conference 2022: Comics and Conscience: Ethics, Morality, and Great Responsibility - Dublin, Irland
Varighed: 29 jun. 20221 jul. 2022
https://internationalgraphicnovelandcomicsconference.com/

Konference

KonferenceInternational Graphic Novel and Comics Conference 2022
Land/OmrådeIrland
ByDublin
Periode29/06/202201/07/2022
Internetadresse

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