Abstract

This article interrogates the notion that comics that engage with history do so primarily within the scope of the archive. I argue, instead, that drawing and seeing/reading comics are embodied practices that generate meaning and memory in ways that exceed the discursive logic of the archive. Building on existing scholarship on embodied acts of memory within performance studies, I suggest that comics might better be seen in proximity to what Diana Taylor calls “the repertoire”: cultural memory embodied in live gestures, rather than deposited in language. Seen through the lens of the repertoire, a comic such as Joe Sacco’s The Fixer (2003) offers new ways to make visible and legible the histories that have been left outside the official archives. By opening up for analysis the body, its staging, and its gestures on the page, the lens of the repertoire makes good use of what archival memory dismisses as the site of traumatic aporia: the unreliable testimony of the perpetrator. Rather than dismissing such material, the methodology of the repertoire transforms it into a repository of cultural meanings, which provide an insight into the collective fantasies and imaginaries on which the nationalist archive tends to stay silent.

摘要

本文质疑这样一种观念，即涉及历史的漫画主要是在档案馆的范围内这样做的。相反，我认为，绘画和看/读漫画是具体的实践，它们以超越档案的话语逻辑的方式产生意义和记忆。基于表演研究中记忆具体行为的现有学术研究，我认为漫画可能更接近戴安娜泰勒所说的“剧目”：体现在现场手势中的文化记忆，而不是沉积在语言中。透过剧目镜头看，一部漫画，如乔·萨科 (Joe Sacco) 的The Fixer(2003) 提供了使官方档案之外的历史变得可见和清晰的新方法。通过打开页面上的身体、它的舞台和它的手势进行分析，剧目的镜头很好地利用了档案记忆中被视为创伤性困境的地方：肇事者不可靠的证词。剧目的方法论并没有摒弃这些材料，而是将其转变为文化意义的宝库，这提供了对民族主义档案往往保持沉默的集体幻想和想象的洞察力。