On 27 January Dr Axel Staehler from the Department of Comparative Literature will be giving a lecture on Art Spiegelman’s award-winning Maus (1986-1991) at the Tunbridge Wells Museum & Art Gallery for Holocaust Memorial Day 2014.
Spiegelman’s now iconic graphic novel, originally serialised in the comic magazine Raw from 1980-1991, was initially received controversially because it introduced the serious subject of Holocaust testimony and second generation survivor trauma to the comic genre. Yet in 1992 it was the first graphic novel to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize and crucially changed popular perception of the comic genre and its literary potential.
Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp on 27 January 1945. The talk accompanies the Tunbridge Wells Museum’s retrospective on comic book artist Dave McKean.
For further information on the lecture, please see: www.tunbridgewellsmuseum.org/default.aspx?page=2463
Dr Staehler also conducted a workshop this week, on 7 January, at Tonbridge Grammar School. Spiegelman’s text is included in the curriculum of the International Baccalaureate offered at Tonbridge Grammar School, and is also taught in the Comparative Literature module on ‘The Shoah in Literature, Film, and Culture’ at Kent.
UPDATE: Axel will also be giving his lecture on Maus at the University of Kent on Wednesday 29 January at 4.15pm. All are welcome. For more information, please see: http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/events/index.html