Embodied Reading: The Graphic Novel, Perception, and Memory

Abstract

The article argues that the role touch plays in embodied reading processes is an important aspect of the narrowing experiential gap between analog and digital media in contrast to earlier notions of a revolutionary leap in textuality. Transitional print textuality is often informed by experiential habits and types of attention schooled by electronic media rather than its specific forms and devices. The article presents the success of the graphic novel and the prominence of the subject of memory in this medium as a case of this type of transitional textuality, using the example of "Déogratias," Jean Philippe Stassen's graphic novel on the genocide in Rwanda.