In anticipation of upcoming Beck Series visiting writer and graphic memoirist Mira Jacob, who will join the campus community for a series of events and classroom visits on Wednesday, March 25, and Thursday, March 26, students in Professor Ron Abram’s “Contemporary Comics” class and Professor Amy Butcher’s “Studies in Literature: The Literary Memoir” quite literally rolled up their sleeves.
Over the span of two class periods, students combined their love of comics and literature to design collaborative, single-panel graphic memoirs on blue line boards, using photographs taken with their classmates. After brief introductions to comics and the literary memoir designed to bring the alternate class up to speed, students were assigned a partner from the opposing class and challenged with responding — via a visual medium — to one of a series of prompts that asked them to explore life at Denison in a way that extended beyond classes and responsibilities, revealed a personal burden and how it is perceived — or not perceived — by others, or explored the hidden thoughts that commonly lurk beneath every day interactions. Above all, students were encouraged to pursue honesty, reflection, and creative risk-taking.
“Now in its 24th year as a class at Denison, Contemporary Comics was a natural fit to collaborate with Professor Butcher’s Literary Memoir class,” explained Abram. “My class, like Amy’s, allows students to realize the potential of their own life stories, relationships, and perspectives on the world as opportunities to create sincere and meaningful art. Comics students are writing, drawing, and designing their own memoirs in the form of comics all semester long, so what a great nexus having Mira Jacob’s upcoming Denison visit bring students together in a truly collaborative spirit.”
“We couldn’t be luckier in our inaugural offering to benefit from myriad opportunities to explore the memoir here on campus,” Butcher reported. “This is my first time offering ENGL 310 Studies in Literature: The Literary Memoir, and so far my students have been able to study and produce audio memoirs as part of the Journalism Program’s 8th Annual Podcast-a-Thon — where one of my students, Margaret Held ’27, was named a finalist for her exceptional audio memoir, Playing Hooky — and now we’re fortunate enough to collaborate with Professor Abram’s class to create dynamic graphic memoirs in anticipation of Mira Jacob’s visit. We’re doing things a little backwards — that is, we’ll circle around to focus on book-length literary memoirs in the second half of the semester — but I’m so thrilled with what we’ve been able to do as a result of Denison’s robust programming.”
As part of the graphic memoir assignment, students in both classes were encouraged to draft scripts authentic to their lives and lived experiences and to include both internal monologue (thought bubbles) and dialogue (speech balloons), in addition to making stylistic and artistic choices complementary to the medium. While the assignment relied primarily on photographs taken with their classmates, students were also supplied with all the tools and materials necessary to design, build, and collage a small comic sliver of their lives, including specialty comic pens, printed text, and collage materials, which served as the visual backdrop to their comics. In addition to submitting their graphic memoirs to their corresponding faculty for a grade, students’ graphic memoirs will be published as part of a joint anthology and exhibited in the Denison Museum from Monday, April 6, through Friday, April 17, as part of Professor Butcher’s special exhibit on memoir.
“All of this work is to set the stage for Mira Jacob’s visit,” Professor Butcher explained. “Good Talk is an incredible testament to what the visual medium makes possible for emerging memoirists, and Jacob’s own admission of her relative newness to illustration upon conception of the book should serve as an inspiration to anyone curious about what can happen through the marriage of visuals and text.”
Jacob, whose visit is generously cosponsored by the Beck Series, the Laura C. Harris Program, and the Denison Museum, will offer a reading and discussion of her graphic memoir to the campus community at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 25, at the Denison Museum. The following afternoon, she’ll lead a generative graphic workshop, entitled “Drawing Conversations,” from noon to 1 p.m. in the Denison Museum classroom. Both events are free and open to the public, though participants are encouraged to sign up in advance for the workshop, which promises to help participants “dive deep into the joys and hazards of talking to other humans,” “locate conversations that stick,” and “draw them into life.” No illustration experience is necessary, Jacob promises, though “experience cringing is a plus.” Those unfamiliar with Jacob’s work can enjoy a specially curated Good Talk exhibit by two of the Denison Museum’s interns, who were granted exclusive access by Jacob to the book’s high-res illustrations.
“It’s a great project for them,” explained Denison Museum Director Megan Hancock. “They are so excited to curate this exhibit.”
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations, Jacob’s most recent book, is a graphic memoir designed around illustrated conversations with her young biracial (half-Indian, half-Jewish) son, whose questions about his identity — his race, his family, and his country — grew increasingly difficult for Jacob to answer. By employing a unique mix of drawings, photos, and text to recount her answers — and the internal inquiry they required — Jacob rebuilds formative conversations from her childhood past and ongoing present, ultimately illustrating abstract concepts that include racism, love, and what it means to be a person of color in the United States in ways that rely heavily on both vulnerability and humor.
“I want you to understand what it is like to be a [person of color] in America,” Jacob wrote upon the book’s publication, “and how many different messages you are given every day, and how many different things people will tell you about yourself at any given moment, and how many people feel the right to claim your time, and your mind, and your body, for whatever purpose they have in mind.”
In addition to an array of starred reviews and praise, the book was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award, named a New York Times Notable Book, and named a best book of the year by Time, Esquire, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. Her forthcoming novel, We Killed Anji Alexander, about the murder of a white-passing Indian actress, will be released in 2027 with Ecco Books.
As the final event of her campus visit, Jacob will meet with Professor Abram and Butcher’s students, who will reconvene in the Denison Museum on Thursday, March 26, for a special combined classroom visit to discuss with Jacob their experience of reading Good Talk and creating their first graphic memoir.
“I’m excited for her to see what they’ve built, using her book as inspiration,” explained Butcher. “And yes, suffice it to say, I’m eager for the many ‘good talks’ that will ensue.”
