Racial Reckoning Comics logo


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.

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Past Events

The following events were free and open to the public.

Events

An Evening with Joe Sacco promotional image

An Evening with Joe Sacco

Thursday, February 9, 2023 6:30pm to 8:00pm
University of Iowa Main Library
Join us in conversation with journalist, comics artist, and Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor Joe Sacco, (Safe Area Gorazde, Paying the Land) interviewed by Rachel Williams for a talk about race, war, identity but also about his personal creative process and the art of comics.  This is part of a three-day event devoted to "Drawing Panels and Crossing Borders: Negotiating Self and Other in Comics" with MariNaomi, Candida Rifkind, Jorge Santos, and Jose Alaniz. Organized by the...
February 9-11: Racial Reckoning through Comics promotional image

February 9-11: Racial Reckoning through Comics

Thursday, February 9 6:30pm to Saturday, February 11, 2023 6:00pm
Iowa City Public Library/UI Obermann Center
For the next "Racial Reckoning Through Comics" event, we will engage in conversation with artists MariNaomi and Joe Sacco as well as scholars Candida Rifkind, Jorge Santos, and José Alaniz to discuss how colonial dynamics are involved in racialization processes. From the global to the local, from international conflicts to the everyday life in times of peace, our artists’ stories and our scholars’ analyses will explore how the grammar of comics can imagine, write, and draw anti-racist and anti...
"Racial Reckoning through Comics" closing event with the Hernandez Bros. promotional image

"Racial Reckoning through Comics" closing event with the Hernandez Bros.

Friday, April 14 10:00am to Saturday, April 15, 2023 6:00pm
Iowa City Public Library
Please join us for our last event with some of the most influential artists today, “the Hernandez Bros,” together with Natalia Hernandez and scholars Qiana Whitted (University of South Carolina) and Darieck Scott (UC Berkeley). We will enjoy our guests’ presentations at the Iowa City Public Library as well as a variety of events. On Friday, we will play the Love and Rockets: The Great American Comic Book at Filmscene, a documentary that celebrates 40 years of the artists’ career. This is part of...