The
Social
Media
Aesthetics
of
Mobility:
Reinhard
Kleist’s
The
Olympic
Dream
and
Comics
on
Refugee
Experience
WCGS
warmly
welcomes
Dr.
Elizabeth
Nijdam
of
the
University
of
British
Columbia
on
Tuesday,
November
12,
2019.
Dr.
Nijdam
will
discuss
Reinhard
Kleist's
graphic
novel
An
Olympic
Dream:
The
Story
of
Samia
Yusuf
Omar
and
how
it
integrates
the
technologies
of
refugee
life
in
order
to
disrupt
media
representation
of
migrants
and
the
-
often
fatal
-
experience
of
migration.
This
talk
is
hosted
by
the
course GER
308
German
through
Comics
taught
by
Sara
Marsh.
To
compliment
this
talk
Sara
has
also
organized
a
poster
exhibition
"Legends
and
Dreams:
Reinhard
Kleist’s
Graphic
Narrative."
This
is
a
free
event
and
open
to
all,
hope
to
see
you
there!
Want
to
learn
more
about
Kleist's
graphic
novel?
Check
out
this
CBC
interview
with
the
author
Event Details
When:
Tuesday,
November
12,
2019
at
3:00pm
Where:
PAS
1241
Parking:
Parking lot C is a pay and display lot for visitors at a cost of $5.00 per day. Payment can be made with credit card or exact change ($1 and $2 coins). This lot is visible from University Avenue West but only accessible from Seagram Drive.
Full Abstract: In the last decade, comics and graphic novels on migration have become an essential forum for representing refugee experience. This emergent genre of graphic narration not only offers the representation of migrant hardships from the subjective perspective of refugees, artists, and volunteers working in the community, comics on the refugee crisis also develop empathy and awareness for the plight of migrants internationally by giving a voice to countless nameless – and often faceless – migrants, whose images circulate widely in the media. Moreover, comic artists working on refugee and migrant subjects are inventing new visual languages to express these individuals’ perilous journeys from war-torn regions of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia to European soil, incorporating the very media technology essential for migration – and its representation – into the comics form. This presentation examines how Reinhard Kleist’s The Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar (2015) integrates the technologies of refugee life – the news industry and photojournalism that reports on it and the social media platforms essential to it – into the fabric of his narration to intervene in discourses on the media representation of migrants and the – often fatal – experience of migration.