“Genocide Drawn”: Exploring Comics and Graphics as Teaching Materials

On April 1, the Dutch NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies organized a symposium titled “Genocide Drawn” in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The central question of the symposium was How to work with comics and graphics on genocide and war crimes? The symposium took the brilliant Maus graphics from Art Spiegelman as reference point. For an audience of teachers, artists and art students the richness of this type of sources was enlightened from different disciplines: historical research, media studies and art. Students from the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts functioned as “artists in residence”. During the workshops participants looked at how to analyse these graphics sources. What are the specific characteristics that have to be taken into account when working with comics and graphics?

Following up on the “Genocide Drawn” event, EuroClio and NIOD will explore the potential of comics and graphics as teaching materials and how these can be used in history education.

This article was written by EuroClio Ambassador Ineke Veldhuis-Meester, who attended the event on behalf of EuroClio.