Our Sawyer Seminar draws from both critical perspectives and creative work in the arts, humanities, and social sciences to address how race and ethnicity have been represented historically. Through yearlong conversation and four exciting public symposia, we’ll consider how comics reflect and shape understanding of race and ethnicity in specific times and places. We understand “comics” broadly as comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs, and other forms of visual narrative.  We welcome critical and creative reflections on troubling as well as affirming images, and on depictions by and of “others” as well as examples of personal or collective self-representation.  We are keenly aware of the ways race and ethnicity intersect with other categories of identity, including gender, sexuality, religion, age, abilities, and nationality, and welcome discussions that engage with rather than isolate those differences.  Addressing a public audience in a community steeped in the arts and committed to social justice, we expect to pose hard but necessary questions and welcome diverse and thoughtful responses.

We invite you to join us in these events taking place throughout the 2022–23 academic year.