Site of Resistance

Comics as a Site of Resistance: Fractured Identities, Disjointed Cultural Lineage, and Asian American Representation
Yi Wang explains her personal journey of exploring comics as a site of resistance against racism and systematic violence, particularly through understanding the representation of fractured identities and broken cultural lineage in Asian American graphic narratives. Focusing on the multimodal affordances of comics, the talk explores how fragmented visual structures, temporal and spatial representation, and multimodal mediators represent the multifaceted aspects of racial trauma—from individual, familial, to communal levels—experienced by the Asian American characters. By combining cognitive narratology with trauma studies, this talk aims to demonstrate how Asian American comics challenge racial stereotypes, negotiate inherited trauma and fractured histories, and create resistant narrative spaces for marginalized voices that make these experiences sharable and relevant.