'Abina and the Important Men' discussion on History World (aka H-World)

[Jeremy Greene]

I will post - here - the discussion that happened on H-world around Trevor Getz's and Liz Clarke's graphic history Abina and the Important Men. Ed Note: each discussion thread as it appeared in the  list serve e-mail discussion are pasted below in the discussion threads below.

http://www.abina.org/

 

[Jeremy Greene]

David Kalivas

Middlesex Community College and H-World Co-editor
                [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>



Today is the start of our 4th Author's Forum featuring the work of Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke's Abina and The Important Men: A Graphic History (Oxford University Press).   The forum begins today and will feature a discussion on _Abina_ until next Tuesday, March 27th.  During this time, only posts relevant to Abina and Africa in world history will be posted on H-World.

We begin with two commentaries/reviews by Professor Jonathan Reynolds (Northern Kentucky University) and Professor Maryanne Rhett (Monmouth University and H-World Editor). These commentaries will be followed by a response from Professor Trevor Getz, which I will post tomorrow, and in turn will be followed by questions, comments, and statements from H-World subscribers on Abina and the issues raised by this book.

Questions and/or comments for the author and reviewers should be sent to [e-mail] as is normally done for our general discussions.

Thank you to the authors and reviewers for their willingness to participate in this dedicated discussion on H-World. And of course, thank you to H-World subscribers for their willingness to engage in this and all of our discussions.

[Jeremy Greene]

Jonathan Reynolds

Northern Kentucky University
                 [e-mail]




H-World Author's Forum, Spring 2012.
Abina and the Important Men, by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke
Review by Jonathan T. Reynolds, Northern Kentucky University



Some years ago, Trevor Getz found a document in the Ghanaian National Archives, Accra.  It wasn't a terribly large document, just a dozen or so pages.  But it was an interesting document in that it touched on a number of broad themes that relate to our understandings of African and World History. It was a court transcript dealing with enslavement in the Atlantic World. It dealt with gender.  It dealt with colonialism.  It dealt with an individual's battle for sovereignty and personhood.  It was the story of a young woman named Abina fighting to live life on her own terms in a time and place where such a desire was difficult, to say the least.

Now, those of us who work in archives like the one in Ghana (I've worked there myself) know that finding an interesting document isn't exactly a rare thing.  In fact, one of the challenges of doing such research is ignoring all the interesting stuff that isn't exactly relevant to the research at hand.  But let's imagine for a moment that somebody other than Dr. Getz found this document and thought it worthy of scholarship.  What would have happened?  I think the most likely answer is that he or she would have produced a paper.  This author would have worked hard to deftly place Abina's story in the context of the wider (and not inconsiderable) scholarship on slavery in Africa and the Atlantic World in the 19th Century. Numerous citations would be used to relate the salient economic, gender, political, and moral issues which the court document relating to Abina's case so well exemplifies.  Presented at a conference or two, I'm sure this paper would have been well received.  So encouraged, our hypothetical scholar would have refined his or her arguments and submitted the article to a suitably prestigious peer-reviewed journal.  I bet it would have been accepted. Later, others would cite the article in their own work.  In the end, dozens of scholars, maybe even hundreds, would have read it.  Perhaps it would even attain the fame of being assigned as reading for graduate students in seminars dealing with the subject of slavery and colonialism. No doubt all of this would help the world to be a better place in a small way.  Not a bad achievement for our little document.

I'm happy to say, however, that this isn't how it worked out.  Thankfully, it was Dr. Getz who intersected with Abina's story and took it in a very different direction from that normally dictated by the expectations and standards of Academia.  I mean, for crying out loud, who among us can say that we would have read through the pages of that weathered folder in Accra and thought Gosh, this would an excellent foundation for a brilliantly conceived and thoughtfully illustrated Graphic History!  And heck, why not provide the primary document and also place Abina's story in wider historical context? And I'll introduce each section with a different Adinkra symbol, so as to anchor the core concepts of the volume in local cultural context. Then, just for yucks, I'll get Oxford University Press to publish it in full color and at a price that makes it easy to adopt for use in a variety of classroom settings.  I hate to admit the fact that I'm sure I wouldn't have thought of anything nearly as smart -- much less have been able to pull it off even if I had thought of something even in the same cosmic ballpark of genius.  This is why Trevor Getz is, in my opinion, such a very smart dude.  He thought of something nobody else would have thought of, and he pulled it off with equivalent brilliance.

[Jeremy Greene]

Not only was Abina and the Important Men well conceived, it is also very well realized. The narrative is historically plausible and the images beautifully and sympathetically rendered.   I have no doubt that the graphic approach will help draw students into not only the story, but also into the wider complexities which it highlights.  I am also sure that there are detractors who will argue (and perhaps rightfully so) that in authoring and producing the graphic version of Abina's life, Getz is himself guilty of the historical crime of extrapolating too far from his source.  To echo my earlier comments, I certainly never would have had the historical chutzpah to get so far away from a nice safe citation.  And yet I eagerly anticipate having the first student raise the issue of whether or not Getz is just plain wrong about some aspect of Abina's struggle, because it is exactly in engaging such questions of historical truth and representation that I think Abina and the Important Men will excel in the classroom.

 

By providing a sort of historical novelization of Abina's life, Getz has helped place an otherwise unknown woman squarely in the middle of a host of crucial grand narratives of 19th Century African and Atlantic History. Frankly, this very concept has given me goosebumps several times and has thrice brought me to the verge of tears. It's a sort of historical resurrection and redemption, and it appeals deeply to my sense of historical justice.  But my historical superego nonetheless frets at times that he has pushed it a bit too far.  But here is where the genius of including the actual court document and the section on historical context come in.  How much more productive a class can we hope for as teachers of history than a discussion of a primary document, a setting, and a debate over whether or not the constructed narrative is accurate (or at least plausible)?  I relish the very idea of discussing what Getz might have gotten wrong, what possible alternatives for Abina's story might exist, and what we would need to know to advance such alternative interpretations.  I also relish just what a complicated picture it presents of how we as historians struggle to reconstruct and represent the past based on our sources and sometimes in spite of their (and our) limitations.

Abina and the Important Men is a beautiful story, but it is more than that. It is a pedagogical tour de force.  It is perhaps the most creative text I have yet seen for teaching how we do history and for engaging the potentials and limitations of our craft.  It's just that good.

[Jeremy Greene]

Maryanne Rhett

Monmouth University
                [e-mail]




H-World Author's Forum, Spring 2012.
_Abina_ and the Important Men, by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke
Review by Maryanne Rhett, H-World co-editor/WHA Program Chair/Monmouth University

I first heard about _Abina and the Important Men_ through the academic grapevine. One of my former professors let me know that Trevor Getz had just finished the work and that it should be available, so I "amazoned" it (through the WHA link) immediately.  I am not an Africanist, nor do I know much about the era or region the book covers, I am however, a graphic novel enthusiast.  Since doing my MA work in Tucson at the University of Arizona I have used graphic novels to a greater or lesser degree in the classroom, and in 2007 actually began writing about the utility of graphic novels for teaching world history, and have since expanded this to understanding the historical context of the graphic novel more generally. As a world historian, _Abina_ seemed to be the offer two of my favorite topics rolled into one.

_Abina_ joins a prestigious, if limited, selection of similar works that transgress the boundary between "traditional history" and comic books. A short list of this genre includes _The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion_ (written by the father of the graphic novel himself, Will Eisner), and to some degree or another Marjane Satrapi's _Persepolis_ (volumes one and two), Art Spieglman's _Maus_ series, Joe Sacco's _Palestine_, or even Jim Ottaviani's _Suspended in Language: Neils Bohr's Life, Discoveries, and the Century He Shaped_.  Indeed the list of graphic novels which are ideal additions to the history classroom is rather extensive, but as with the examples above or the case of _Abina_, few are intended to be histories, and even fewer are authored by trained historians. Of course historicity need not be proven, as with Suspended in Language and The Plot, by extensive end/footnotes and bibliographies, nor by the author's graduate degree, as Trevor Getz himself repeatedly notes, but Getz's work is set aside from the likes of other graphic histories by its very format.

Perhaps I have gotten ahead of myself.  Is _Abina_ in fact a graphic novel? If we take "graphic novel" to mean fiction, then most assuredly it is not. Indeed Oxford has billed it as a "graphic history" and this is, in truth, a much better term, fitting it nicely in among such works as I mentioned earlier. "Graphic" too, for those who do not use this genre, does not necessarily mean explicit or violent, but refers to the illustrative quality that coincides with a narrative. A good graphic novel should be readable at least twice, once for the literal narration and once for the visual cues and rhetoric. Both reiterations of the story should be complementary, if not (and commonly not at all) the same. Graphic novels, graphic histories, and even more "traditional" comic books (e.g. X-Men or Superman) have found increasing readership among middle school and high school students, in the classroom, over the last several years. (Sites like http://www.comicbookclassroom.org/about-us/teachers or http://www.teachingcomics.org/, as just two examples, are helping to promote great use comic books, graphic novels, and sequential art in the K-12 classroom, as a way to better integrate various interdisciplinary themes). Some graphic novels, like _Persepolis_ and _Maus_ have been staples of the K-12 and college classroom (perhaps too much so, in that a wide variety of "guides" and "aides," or readymade essays are available on the web).

[Jeremy Greene]

I chose to use _Abina_ this semester in an interdisciplinary course I am teaching titled "A Graphic World: Sequential Art and World History." (The course focuses on artistic, literary, and historical themes in a wide variety of graphic novels and comics books). _Abina_ was one of the first books the class read this semester and the student response was strikingly similar to my own. The content is engaging, and for many of my students this was new material (perhaps a sad statement since they are all seniors). The class discussion indicated that they really engaged with the questions Abina's story raised about gender relationships and roles or the concepts of freedom and servitude. Moreover, since initially discussing the book my students have repeatedly come back to it as a point of comparison to other works. For example, in our discussion of _The Four Immigrants Manga_, by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama, they found a number of thematic parallels, particularly as related to themes of power and powerlessness.

All of this being said, the class took its role as critical evaluators of the readings very seriously.  A number of students openly questioned if _Abina_ constituted a graphic novel (or history) or was simply a textbook written, in part, with a graphic style. Was _Abina_ trying to do too much in conveying a under-represented slice of history through a (relatively) new medium AND thoroughly delving into methodology and the author's own self-reflections on place vis a vis history? A number of students, for example, actually thought there had been a mistake when they bought the book, that in fact they had received a teacher's copy. (I actually thought this at first too). The addition of the historiography, contextualization, and self-reflection, while certainly interesting broke the flow of the reading (and viewing) experience for the students. They found it jarring and a number of them simply said it was as if they were reading "just another textbook." Was the addition of the non-graphic materials simply an indication about uncertainty with the medium? In other words, was there concern, be it on the part of Getz and Clarke, or Oxford, that the history could not stand alone as just the graphic novel? The students and I all agreed that we did not feel this to be the case. Abina's story is wonderfully engaging and offers educator numerous avenues for approaching historical themes and questions. The graphic potion (about half of the whole book) could certainly stand on its own. This is not to say the other materials are unappreciated. In fact I was grateful for the additional context, as were my students, but could this not be supplementary material? For example, textbooks have on-line databases students can access to supplement their class lectures and readings.  Many students expressed gratitude for the discussion of the court transcript and found it really interesting to see where the historical record differed (or not) from Getz's interpretation. They did not, however, find much use for the strategies for the classroom setting section (this in particular made them question if what they received was a teacher's edition).

 

For my part, I am interested to see how my world historiography class (graduate level) will interpret Getz's work. I wonder, if in the context of other works of historiography, if the additional materials will be seen as useful in and of themselves. Moreover, the self-reflection that Getz offers will be a particularly useful tool for underscoring questions of the historian and the historian's craft.

I am excited to see World Historians taking on the challenge of presenting oft-excluded history, in new and inventive ways, particular as graphic history. I look forward to seeing many more graphic histories.

[Jeremy Greene]

Trevor Getz

Author - Abina and the Important Men (Oxford University Press)
             H-World Author's Forum, Spring 2012.


Let me begin by expressing my appreciation to the editors of H-World for this opportunity, and to Jonathan Reynolds and Maryanne Rhett for the time and effort they have spent reviewing Abina and the Important Men.  I am a long-time admirer of Dr. Reynold's work as both an Africanist and a world historian and also as co-author of the book that best bridges the fields, Africa in World History [1].  I only became aware of Dr. Rhett's scholarship during the process of writing Abina.  However her article "The Graphic Novel and the World History Classroom" helped to guide my production of this book.[2]   It is not too much to say that Reynolds and Rhett have both contributed to helping to bring the story of a seemingly unimportant young, African woman into our lives today.  Thus their positive reviews mean a great deal to me and to Liz Clarke, the artist and my partner in producing this volume.

One thing Rhett, Reynolds, Clarke, and I share is a belief in the potential intellectual value of a graphic history. Of course, as enthusiasts we are all aware that there are many of skeptics of this view.  One of my own colleagues, and a dear friend, responded to the publication of this book by saying that it was "a shame that students don't read anymore".  This is, I believe, a natural response.  As historians, we are generally trained to work with written sources; as teachers we encourage our students to do the same.       That was one reason why I packed this book with a teaching guide, a contextual history, and philosophical and methodological discussions of power, meaning, and our human relationship to the past. Through these resources, I tried to reach a delicate balance in which an unfamiliar type of narrative -the graphic history-was supported by more familiar types of analysis.   While I agree with Rhett that it should be unnecessary to prove the historicity of a graphic history when so many purely written texts are uncritically accepted by students and teachers alike, I nevertheless hope that these resources help to make the work accessible to a much wider audience.

The issue of the accessibility is important to me because I believe that Abina's words and experiences are important and relevant to a broad swathe of society today. In searching for a medium for sharing her narrative, I therefore looked for one that would both attract readers and engage them. Like many of my fellow instructors, I have found that students tend to absorb graphic narratives more deeply than most written sources.  Yet it is too simple to suggest that accessibility is their only advantage.  Rather, I have found that another advantage to the medium is that it forces the historian to be more accurate by being more holistic, to the benefit of readers.  A properly researched and peer-reviewed graphic history explores not only the language and ideas of the past but also the setting and material culture from which they were produced.  As Liz and I demonstrate in the Reading Guide section of Abina and the Important Men, we found that process of illustrating the text forced us to explore the architecture, dress, urban planning, and social attitudes of late nineteenth century Cape Coast.  These were topics that neither of us had thought about and that I would not otherwise have included in an article on this court case. Moreover, working in this medium gave us a greater freedom to place the evidence from one small piece of testimony into a rich world of people, places, and perspectives.

[Jeremy Greene]

I will be the first person to admit, however, there are dangers to the narrativization and illustration process by which a source is turned into a graphic history.  As Reynolds points out in his review, our version of Abina's story includes turns of interpretation and even speculation that cannot be conclusively proven by the evidence of the text.  Such leaps of imagination blur the line between fiction and history. I would argue, however, that all histories skirt this line, and often not as honestly. Narrativization is a central part of the analytical process through which history is produced, and Liz and I not only admit this throughout the book but even try to guide readers through the process by which we worked.

Perhaps I am more comfortable with such leaps of imagination because, as a historian of pre-colonial Africa, I often find myself up against walls of silence that result from the methodological shortcomings of the profession and the realities of the historical record.  Those of us engaged in the breaking down of such silences are used to searching hard and deep for the scanty, hidden voices of those without power.  Moreover, we are motivated by an ethical commitment to making these voices heard.  This may lead us to take risks in bringing them to the corpus that others would not.

Yet I would not hide all of this behind a statement of scholarly objectivity. In fact, the book is structured in a way that I hope provokes questions about the writing of this book rather than the asserting authority of the author.  This approach is the result of my experience in the classroom.  In the fifteen years between finding Abina's testimony and writing this book, I taught this document as a primary source in a number of classes.  I gradually developed the practice of preparing students to read the testimony by discussing with them the methods by which histories are constructed, the ethics implicit in the historian's exercise of intellectual power, and the theories through which we can frame and interrogate these issues.  When it came time to publish the testimony, I knew I had to include these resources in the book as tools that I hoped would allow students to critically compare my written interpretation and Liz' graphic interpretation with the original document.  Like Reynolds, I hold my breath every year waiting for the first student to challenge my interpretation with his or her own - not in fear, but in anticipation.

My approach to Abina ties into my overall understanding of the role of the instructor in the classroom.  Whenever I am asked to explain how this book can be used as a source in the teaching of African and world history, I spend only a small fragment of my response establishing the broader themes of colonialism, slavery, gender construction, and globalization.  I spend more time talking about critical thinking, media and message awareness, and social justice.  For me, the task of sharing with our students the tools to think ethically and critically is at least as valuable as the content we give them.

[Jeremy Greene]

Yet Abina's narrative is not only a source, but in and of itself a history as well.  Even before Liz and I went to work, Abina had established in her testimony a rich personal biography in her own voice.  It is the voice of a person who is driven, passionate, and capable and that comes to us from a far-away place and a distant time, and there is value in that as well.  I hope that students use our interpretation and the tools found in the Reading Guide to help inform their everyday reading of sources, history, and media. However, I have heard from many of them that it is Abina's testimony --her differentness and her sameness, her passion and her capability -that stays with them most.  I am content if that is the impact Abina has made on their lives.

In closing, this response to the reviews by Reynolds and Rhett, let me say that I believe that critical engagement is important to building a better methodology for producing and using graphic histories and graphic novels in the classroom.  I am reminded of the debates Africanists and other scholars have had over the year as to the methods of working with oral histories, in which the skeptics have been as useful as the enthusiasts in producing a better body of work.  Therefore, I am very open to listening to diverse opinions.  I would also like to hear back from the (approximately 100) instructors who are using Abina and the Important Men in their classrooms. Hopefully your comments will help us all to improve our work in this field for the future.


[1] Erik Gilbert and Jonathan Reynolds, Africa in World History: From Prehistory to the Present, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.

[2] Rhett, Maryanne, "The Graphic Novel and the World History Classroom". World History Connected 4.2 (2007): 21 pars. 11 Mar. 2012 a href="http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/whc/4.2/rhett.html.">http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/whc/4.2/rhett.html>.

[Jeremy Greene]

Joe Miller

University of Virginia
                     [e-mail]




A preliminary, process-oriented response, now that Trevor Getz has responded, in a characteristically thoughtful mode, and in the process politely (pointedly?) acknowledging that the organizers and reviewers of this Forum have not included the artist, Liz Clarke, in the discussion.  I was surprised to find neither reviewer taking on the artistry, design, execution of the pictures, which are not only the distinguishing aspect of the "graphic history/novel" mode but also one of the strong components of this production.  Perhaps Liz Clarke has declined to involve herself in this verbal forum, preferring to express herself in images, as she has done so elegantly in Abina, but I would love to see her thoughts on the process of interpreting history in general and Abina in particular, and to have a discussant of the visual qualities of the book.
Perhaps, also, a book designer, since OUP has done a magnificent job of producing this volume, and at an accessible cost!  A kindle image it is not, and digital editions can never approach the rich experience of the object that OUP has given us to hold in our hot little hands.
I hope that the ensuing substantive discussion will include appreciative critiques of these two central qualities of a work that H-World seems to have presented as worthy of discussion - as well it is! - as book design and visual expression as well as history and as a tool for teaching.
Appreciatively - JOE MILLER (University of Virginia)

[Jeremy Greene]

Jeremy Greene

Chelmsford HS                    

[e-mail]

From reading the description of the book, Abina and the Important Men, reminds me of a book _Caetana Says No:  Women's Stories from a SlaveSociety_ http://www.amazon.com/Caetana-Says-No-Brazilian-Approaches/dp/05218... well as other recent work in Latin America using court/church documents and also the recent World History Connected article:  Charles W. Romney, "Habeas Corpus, Asian Migrants, and Imperial Legal Rights in Hawai'i in 1900," World History Connected October 2011 http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/8.3/forum_romney.html
So my questions are: Is this global phenomenon explored in the book? And, how do you teach these events and similar ones as global in the classroom (or how would you, if you haven't)?  Thanks.

[Jeremy Greene]

Maryanne Rhett

Monmouth University
               H-World co-editor
               [e-mail]




Given that our topic for this author's forum focuses on the utility of non-traditional materials (graphic novels, comic books, etc.) in the classroom, I thought I'd try and also take this opportunity to connect the discussion to the real world, present moment issues, going on in France. Over the last several days an unknown, until now, gunman has been terrifying the people of France, first targeting French paratroopers and then a Jewish rabbi and children. It seems that the man has been found, and is, as I write this, in a standoff with French forces. Evidence suggests that the man, of Algerian descent, has jihadist and pro-al-Qaeda leanings. The story for many would end there, another Islamic fundamentalist attacking various "western" parties, but that is far from the full story. Those paratroopers, four of whom were killed, were of North African (Muslim) and French Caribbean origin/descent.

How does this connect to our discussion? In 2010 DC comics rolled out its newest installment to the Batman, Inc. franchise. (For those of you unaware of this story line, in short, Batman is getting old and he is appointing "batmans" all over the world. He has one in Tokyo, London, etc.) This newest member of the corporation is "Nightrunner." Nightrunner (Bilal Asselah), a parkour practicing, French-Algerian man, would on the surface be an unlikely candidate, however, he is, like Batman, dedicated to Justice. Bilal, it turns out, is a fictional example of the paratroopers, not the lone gunman. The paratroopers, killed in recent days were targeted, it seems, not because of their ethnicity, but because they represented the Army, read: France. Bilal too, speaks of being both part of France, and forced outside of France, yet he defends the ideals of Frenchness, most importantly democracy and freedom.

[Jeremy Greene]

When DC released the first in the Nightrunner series (of which there have been 3 total editions dealing with Nightrunner) some in the blogosphere took umbrage. Warner Todd Huston's "Batman's Political Correct European Vacation" (http://www.publiusforum.com/2010/12/23/batmans-politically-correct-... -vacation/) notes: "But there's escapism and PC indoctrination. Sadly, it appears that DC Comic's Batman is angling for the latter and not the former. You see, Batman has decided to hire a Muslim to 'save France.'" Huston, as with others who railed against Nightrunner, glosses over the true nature of "jihad" (never noting the difference between lesser and greater jihad, as an example) and the root of problems between French communities in France and communities of non-French ancestry. (For a fictional, but amazingly accurate portrayal of life in the French minority communities, see Mathieu Kassovitz' brilliant 1995 film "Hate" (La Haine). All of that said, there were plenty of blog posts praising the choice of Bilal, as well, e.g. "Right-wing bloggers decry Nightrunner, DC's Muslim 'Batman of Paris'" (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/12/right-wing-bloggers-de... trunner-dcs-muslim-batman-of-paris/) . Even the Daily Show got in on the question, when in March 2011, they aired: "Batman's Muslim Sidekick" (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-1-2011/batman-s-muslim-... ).

The point I am trying to make here is that, as with Abina, these non-traditional sources for understanding the world have great power in the classroom. As has now been noted by Getz and Reynolds as well, _Abina_ is a work that opens up a history to our students they are otherwise unlikely to see. Perhaps, here too, is a good place to address Joseph C. Miller's comment on the power of illustration. As I noted in my review of _Abina_ graphic novels and comic books should be able to be read twice. Once using the narration and once using the illustration. For _Abina_, Clarke offers a stylized glimpse into West African life in the late 1800s in much the same way Batman illustrators are offering a stylized glimpse into modern Paris. Just as we are all aware that history is written and read from multiple perspectives, illustrations, photographs, and other artistic renditions offer perspectives, not "truth," as well. We are shown what the author/illustrator wants us to see. (As an example, a number of recent works have looked more closely at the photography of the Great Depression. Who is in the photo, and why?). I think Miller's comment is an important one to address. My graphic arts students have done a lot to further my own understanding of the use of color, style, and format in viewing the illustrated story, but I do not profess to be an expert on the artistic side of this question, and so I do hope someone will chime in on that thread specifically!

In conclusion, my point is simply a reiteration of the fact that these "non-traditional" materials are extremely valuable for showing the complexity of history. Since so many of us are forced to teach world history in smaller and smaller periods of time, using materials such as these to target multiple questions, to be examples or analogies for much larger phenomena, is a wonderful means of engaging ourselves and our students in, sometimes, new material.