Accepted Paper

The Things That Shaped Me  
Liz Churton (Northern Film School, Leeds Beckett University)

Paper short abstract

Using examples from work in progress on my graphic novel, 'The Things that Shaped Me', I will share my methodological and practical approaches to writing about real and imagined, past and present, traumatic events.

Paper long abstract

Using primarily evocative auto-ethnographic methodology, I'm currently writing a graphic novel which tells a first person story navigating a complicated relationship between a mother and a daughter, set against the backdrop of the broader social issues of the pandemic lockdown. Crisis and trauma are central themes of my story. As the narrative develops, I pay particular attention to how the simultaneous personal, political and social narratives are interwoven. By straddling time, generations, realities and fantasies, I attempt to question the relationship between the present, the past and the future.

I will focus on the following aspects of my methodology:

- Evocative auto-ethnography.

- Fiction-based research.

- Comics-based research.

- Wordless-comics based research.

- The special relationship between trauma, memory and auto-ethnography.

I will look at the practical aspects of writing this graphic novel in relation to :

- My use of abstraction, imagery, allegory and anthropomorphism in the

construction of my narrative.

- Managing time and temporality

- Developing characterisation

- Responding to contemporary events as they unfold

- Integrating social and political commentary with individual emotions

Each of these aspects will be accompanied by illustrations from my graphic novel. work in progress.

Panel P21
Crisis through comics: a roundtable discussion on graphic anthropology
  Session 1