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Wegner, Gesine. "The Poetics and Politics of Staring: Spectacle and Disability in Chris Ware’s Building Stories." Beyond Narrative. Exploring Narrative Liminality and Its Cultural Work. Eds. Sebastian M. Herrmann, Katja Kanzler and Stefan Schubert. Edition Kulturwissenschaft. 2022. 143–56. Added by: joachim (6/19/22, 12:00 PM) Last edited by: joachim (6/19/22, 12:05 PM) |
| Resource type: Book Article Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: Wegner2022 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Building Stories", Disability, Narratology, USA, Ware. Chris Creators: Herrmann, Kanzler, Schubert, Wegner Collection: Beyond Narrative. Exploring Narrative Liminality and Its Cultural Work |
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| Abstract |
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Challenging the idea that processes of ‘closure’ function as primary means by which comics involve their readers, this article investigates how Chris Ware’s Building Stories uses spectacle as a symbolic form that disrupts narrative as much as it depends on it to engage its readers. My reading of Building Stories serves to illustrate that some comics offer a visual pleasure that is not strictly based on narrative and the sequentiality of their images. Spectacle in Building Stories, I argue, functions as both an element of disruption and of orientation. I propose that, by using spectacle, the book not only guides its readers through a hardly navigable narrative web but also allows them to participate in acts of staring. By inviting readers to stare, Building Stories turns the disability of its protagonist into a highly visible and disruptive element while, at the same time, narrativizing it as a part of ordinary, everyday life.
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