Legends and Dreams: Reinhard Kleist’s Graphic Narrative

Misty Matthews-Roper — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 18:42:18 +0000

Legends and Dreams: Reinhard Kleist’s Graphic Narrative Misty Matthews-Roper Tue, 11/05/2019 - 13:42

Legends and Dreams: Reinhard Kleist’s Graphic Narrative - Poster Exhibition

WCGS and GSS invite one and all to browse the halls of the Modern Languages building for an exclusive look at a poster exhibition of Reinhard Kleist's graphic novel Berliner Mythen. The poster series follows the taxi driver Ozan, who connects the audience to the diverse myths of Berlin by the streets he associates with the stories. When his passengers name their destination, Ozan always has a story to tell about Berlin‘s most varied people – from the tsar‘s daughter Anastasia to David Bowie. This exhibition has been organized by the course GER 308 German through Comics taught by Sara Marsh.

To compliment this exhibition WCGS has also invited Dr. Elizabeth (Biz) Nijdam of CENES at the University of British Columbia to speak on Tuesday, November, 12, 2019 at 3:00pm.
For more information about Biz's talk, please check out our event page here.

More details about the exhibition:

The exhibition is in the original German and is located on all three floors of the Modern Languages building. For a printable map of the exhibition please click here. See below for parking information.

The exhibition shows seven comics from the graphic novel Berliner Mythen (“Legends of Berlin”) by the award-winning cartoonist Reinhard Kleist. He received a German Youth Literature Prize and other awards for The Boxer, the biography of a Jewish boxer.

The Legends of Berlin are based on a collection of folklore from four centuries linked to the topology of the metropolis. Editor Michael Groenewald and Lutz Göllner, editor at the Berlin city magazine, Zitty, came up with the idea for the book. Reinhard Kleist thought up the background story: Ozan, a taxi driver, chauffeuring his passengers through Berlin, telling them the legends about the places they are heading to, and listening to their personal stories. This creates a special kind of city guidebook.

Berliner Mythen was published from 2013 until 2015 as a series in Berlin’s city magazine, Zitty.

Read a small write-up about Reinhard Kleist's Berliner Mythen from Deustchlandfunk und Kultur: https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/reinhard-kleist-berliner-mythen-ein-irrsinniges-konglomerat.1270.de.html?dram:article_id=362767
Visit Reinhard Kleist's personal website and learn more about his work.

Parking

Parking lot C is a pay and display lot for visitors at a cost of $5.00 per day. Payment can be made with credit card or exact change ($1 and $2 coins). This lot is visible from University Avenue West but only accessible from Seagram Drive.

Accessible Parking can be found in between the Dana Porter Library (LIB) and the Modern Languages Building (ML). The cost is $5 coin entry ($1 and $2 coins). This area can be accessed off the ring road. Take a right after Ira G. Needles Hall (NH) building to access this parking.

Printable Map

The Social Media Aesthetics of Mobility: Reinhard Kleist’s The Olympic Dream and Comics on Refugee Experience

Misty Matthews-Roper — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 17:33:44 +0000

The Social Media Aesthetics of Mobility: Reinhard Kleist’s The Olympic Dream and Comics on Refugee Experience Misty Matthews-Roper Tue, 10/29/2019 - 13:33

The Social Media Aesthetics of Mobility: Reinhard Kleist’s The Olympic Dream and Comics on Refugee Experience

WCGS warmly welcomes Dr. Elizabeth Nijdam of the University of British Columbia on Tuesday, November 12, 2019. Dr. Nijdam will discuss Reinhard Kleist's graphic novel An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar and how it integrates the technologies of refugee life in order to disrupt media representation of migrants and the - often fatal - experience of migration. This talk is hosted by the course GER 308 German through Comics taught by Sara Marsh. To compliment this talk Sara has also organized a poster exhibition "Legends and Dreams: Reinhard Kleist’s Graphic Narrative." Click here for information about the exhibition.

This is a free event and open to all, hope to see you there!

Want to learn more about Kleist's graphic novel?
Check out this CBC interview with the author

Read Dr. Nijdam's full abstract

Event Details

When: Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at 3:00pm
Where: PAS 1241
Parking:

Full Abstract: In the last decade, comics and graphic novels on migration have become an essential forum for representing refugee experience. This emergent genre of graphic narration not only offers the representation of migrant hardships from the subjective perspective of refugees, artists, and volunteers working in the community, comics on the refugee crisis also develop empathy and awareness for the plight of migrants internationally by giving a voice to countless nameless – and often faceless – migrants, whose images circulate widely in the media. Moreover, comic artists working on refugee and migrant subjects are inventing new visual languages to express these individuals’ perilous journeys from war-torn regions of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia to European soil, incorporating the very media technology essential for migration – and its representation – into the comics form. This presentation examines how Reinhard Kleist’s The Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar (2015) integrates the technologies of refugee life – the news industry and photojournalism that reports on it and the social media platforms essential to it – into the fabric of his narration to intervene in discourses on the media representation of migrants and the – often fatal – experience of migration.