CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Bell, Lara |
|---|---|
| Title | Imaging the Bosnian War through Comics: Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde |
| Summary | This thesis explores the way in which comics, a medium typically understood to be “low-brow,” has been used to create serious representations of nonfiction by using Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia as a case study. It will be argued that Safe Area, although written in the genre of graphic narrative, rivals depictions of the Bosnian War found in academic writing. In addition to its overall representation of the Bosnian War, it is the most comprehensive account of the plight of Gorazde, one of six UN-deemed safe areas, which has been overshadowed by events that transpired in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. Sacco is able to take the same themes used by journalists, academics, and public figures, and use them in a different way to add new dimensions and levels of understanding to the conflict in Bosnia and the safe haven of Gorazde. By blending history and memory, the past and the present, word and image, Sacco’s work exhibits depth and dimension that is lacking in both academic and journalistic depictions of the same events. By comparing traditional academic works as well as popular representations of the Bosnian War, this thesis seeks to contribute to a larger body of work that discusses the utility and function of the graphic narrative as a sophisticated, yet mainstream source of knowledge. |
| Supervisor | Esmer, Tolga; Naumescu, Vlad |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/bell_lara.pdf |
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