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Teaching History with Comic Books: A Case Study of Violence, War, and the Graphic Novel.

2012; Society for History Education; Volume: 45; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

1945-2292

Alicia C. Decker, Maurício Barros de Castro,

Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy

THIS ARTICLE IS THE PRODUCT of an unlikely collaboration. One of us is a life-long fan of comic books. The other is a more recent convert. One of us is a graduate student in American history. The other is an assistant professor of African history. Although our research interests may appear to be quite different, we have found substantial common ground in our discussions about teaching. In this essay, we present a case study that demonstrates how graphic novels can be utilized in the history classroom. More specifically, we discuss the benefits (and challenges) of using comic books to teach undergraduates about war and violence. While much of our discussion focuses on the historical particularities of Uganda, our ideas and experiences are likely to resonate with a wide variety of educators, both within and outside the discipline of history. We are not the first to utilize comic books in the classroom, nor are we the only ones to write about our experiences doing so. Indeed, there is a growing body of literature examining the ways in which scholars have incorporated graphic novels into their lesson plans.1 Art Spiegleman's Pulitzer Prize winning Maus series is perhaps the most commonly utilized, particularly within classes that focus on the Second World War and the Holocaust.2 It is not, however, the only available option for historians. There are a number of lesser-known, but equally compelling texts that explore war, displacement, and genocide in a variety of different contexts.3