Expanding Refugee Comics through Interdisciplinarity, Documenting the War on Gaza, and Moving Beyond Trauma Studies
Sponsored by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Recorded on 07/28/2025
Posted in The Authority File
Episode 435
In the final episode of this four-part series, Candida Rifkind and Dominic Davies, authors of Graphic Refuge, look at current and future trends of refugee comics. First, our guests underscore the interdisciplinary nature of refugee comics by highlighting both humanities and social sciences subjects they applied when writing the title, in addition to their aim to move away from a focus on trauma studies. Next, Candida and Dom chat about Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s On Comics and Grief by Dale Jacobs, and how Dale’s intention to foster a more fluid comics studies discipline aligns with the goals of their book.
Last, Candida and Dom discuss the ongoing genocide in Gaza in relation to Joe Sacco’s Palestine, published more than 20 years ago. Spotlighting several artists documenting Palestinian life and the aftermath of Israeli bombings, they reflect on the influx of comics published on social media platforms since 2023 and their role in raising political consciousness and action around the world. Further, they explore refugee comics’ ability to build solidarity and the need to apply a critical eye to comics that perpetuate tropes of suffering and ignore holistic refugee experiences.
Access the transcript of the episode. Please note that the transcript was generated by Zoom’s automated captioning and is not a perfect transcription.
Listen to our series with On Comics and Grief author Dale Jacobs.
About the guests:
Candida Rifkind
Professor of English
University of Winnipeg
Candida Rifkind is Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, where she specializes in alternative comics and Canadian literature. In addition to numerous publications, she co-edited Documenting Trauma: Traumatic Pasts, Embodied Histories & Graphic Reportage in Comics (Palgrave 2020) and Canadian Graphic: Picturing Life Narratives (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2016).
Dominic Davies
Reader in English
City St George’s, University of London
Dominic Davies is Reader in English at City St George’s, University of London. He writes widely on infrastructure, empire, and migration in literature and culture. He is the author of Urban Comics (Routledge 2019) and The Broken Promise of Infrastructure (Lawrence Wishart 2023), and co-editor of Documenting Trauma in Comics (Palgrave 2020), among other books.
Enjoy the conversation? Listen to the rest of the series:
- What the Implied Reader of Refugee Comics Tells Us about the Genre and Citizenship
- How Graphic Refuge Explores the Ethics of Artist-Refugee Relationships
- Can Refugee Comics Effect Political Change? Discussing Comics Journalism and “Refugeeness”
Check out our previous series with Wilfrid Laurier University Press:
– Talking Infrastructure, Education, and Canada and the Blackface Atlantic
– Podcasting in Academia: A critical look at its potential and discussing a new book, Podcast Studies
– Exploring Ecologies in Practice and Environmental Humanities
– Outlining the “Big, Big Tent” of Comics Studies
– The Contemporary Leonard Cohen
Missed an episode? We’ve got you covered:
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates!
Check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Find the episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music.
Sponsored by:
