In the final lecture of this four part series, Colby Spanish Professor Sandra Bernal Heredia will present a lecture titled “Narrating Traumas: Creation of Comics by Heritage Learners.”

Many studies have highlighted the prominence and appeal of using comics as second language learning tools pointing principally to the comics’ casual speech and image-to-text format to engage students with the language on a dynamic level. In this presentation, Professor Bernal Heredia will explore how the creation of comics can be especially beneficial for heritage learners as students develop visual and narrative abilities but can also serve to reflect and transmit trauma, memory, and emotions.

The unique spatial layout and temporalities of comics allow students to carefully choose text, objects, characters, and panels to negotiate the structure and representation of the story and the narrative.  Comic creation demands planning, idea organization, language succinctness, and grammar, among other things; if the comic has a testimonial component, it can also be a visual and written documentation of a forgotten or marginalized experience. In this presentation, Bernal Heredia gives examples of the comics her students created through the Pixton platform and the pre and post-activities used in this teaching unit.  

Professor Bernal Heredia’s area of specialization is Latin American literature and culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with a focus on Andean, Urban, and Popular Culture studies. Her new research project analyzes the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity in the first Peruvian female superhero, La Chola Power, whose adventures occur in post-apocalyptic spaces and present an intersection between narratives of environmental humanistic climate change and indigenous resilience.  

Come. Listen. Learn. Engage.

• Where: Miller Library’s Wormser Room
• When: Thursday, October 12th, noon – 1pm

Light food and refreshments will be served.