Graphic War

LAINI KAVALOSKI is an associate professor of English and humanities at the State University of New York in Canton.

Introduction: Jewish In/security and Graphic Borders 1 1 Militarized Bodies and Contested Homelands in the Works of Miriam Libicki and Sarah Glidden 23 2 The Implicated Subject and World War II Identity in the Twenty-First Century 51 3 "The Drug of H": Holocaust Addiction, Pulp Horror, and Jewish Identity 87 4 "Work for the Future, Not Only for Memory": Agency, Activism, and Joy in the Works of Leela Corman and Julia Alekseyeva 108 Conclusion: Transforming Political Structures and Futures 137 Notes 141 Works Cited 153 Index 161

"Graphic War is remarkable, arguing that the comic form is exemplary in its engagement with borders, boundaries, and national and cultural identity. Kavaloski argues that comics are an ideal genre for women to contest Jewish national and cultural identity at a time when gender, nation, and belonging have been put seriously in question." - Michael Bernard-Donals, Chaim Perelman Professor of Rhetoric and Culture, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Kavaloski's feminist-spatial practice, with her focus on nationalization and bodies, avoids many of the exceptionalist pitfalls to which the standard historicism dominant in Jewish studies is heir. The compelling model of critical intellectuality elaborated here will aid the effort to break down the boundaries of epistemic privilege behind which Jewish studies so often practices its trade." - Benjamin Schreier, author of The Rise and Fall of Jewish American Literature: Ethnic Studies and the Challenge of Ident "Anchored by representations of war and violence, Kavaloski offers a deft addition to the study of contemporary Jewish graphic narratives through an analysis of the female experience across gendered and national borders." - Samantha Baskind, author of Moses Jacob Ezekiel: Jewish, Confederate, Expatriate Sculptor "Kavaloski's thoughtful readings of Jewish graphic narratives offer new insights into how war and violence affect contemporary Jewish women. This is an important contribution towards understanding the ways that politics, gender, religion, and nationality intersect and the role that visual narratives can play in providing a platform for navigating these complex identities." - Matt Reingold, author of Jewish Comics and Graphic Narratives: A Critical Guide "Kavaloski constructs a useful framework to read the embodied, gendered experience of war and violence in graphic narratives. She calls it 'neoformalist,' but what we get are impactful cultural readings at the intersection of feminism theory, in the wake of spatial turn, with an eye on the aesthetic that can be translated beyond the Jewish literary domain." - Karolina Krasuska, author of Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction