• Home
  • About
    ▼
    • What is Graphic Medicine?
    • Graphic Medicine International Collective
      ▼
      • GMIC Board Resources
    • Website Team
    • Related Sites
      ▼
      • Medicina Grafica
      • Japanese Graphic Medicine Association
      • Graphic Medicine Italia
      • Pathographics
  • Latest
    ▼
    • News
    • The Graphic Medicine Award
    • The Drawing Together Archive
    • Frontline Workers Comics Project
    • Spotlight Archive
  • Reviews
    ▼
    • All
    • Editor’s Picks
    • Graphic Novels
    • Educational
    • Manga
    • Write A Review!
  • Conferences
    ▼
    • 2023 Toronto Conference
    • 2022 Chicago Conference
    • 2021 UnConvention (Virtual) Conference
    • 2020 Toronto Conference
    • 2019 Brighton Conference
    • 2018 Vermont Conference
    • 2017 Seattle Conference
      ▼
      • Home
      • Program
      • Registration (NOW CLOSED)
      • Lodging in Seattle
      • 2017 Seattle Conference Sponsors
      • Call for Art
      • Press/Media Inquiries
    • 2016 Dundee Conference
    • 2015 Riverside Conference
    • 2014 Baltimore Conference
      ▼
      • Home
      • Program 2014
        ▼
        • Program 2014
        • Keynote Speakers 2014
        • Marketplace 2014
        • Juried Exhibit 2014
        • Call for Papers 2014 (closed)
      • Accommodation & Travel 2014
        ▼
        • Accommodation & Travel 2014
        • Additional hotel suggestions
      • Sponsors 2014
      • Baltimore Restaurants & Attractions
      • FAQs 2014
      • Registration 2014 (closed)
    • 2013 Brighton Conference
    • 2012 Toronto Conference
    • 2011 Chicago Conference
    • 2010 London Conference
  • MultiMedia
    ▼
    • Podcasts
    • A Graphic Medicine Conversation with Sam Hester
    • Graphic Medicine Video Archive
    • Graphic Medicine Exhibits
  • Resources
    ▼
    • The Peter James Burns Scholarship Fund
    • Essential Graphic Medicine: An Annotated Bibliography
    • COVID-19 Comics
    • Reproductive Freedom Comics
    • Frontline Workers Comics Project
    • The Drawing Together Archive
    • National Library of Medicine Graphic Medicine Exhibit
    • Liaison Program
    • Publishers
    • RESEARCH
    • TEACHING
    • GRAPHIC MEDICINE CONFAB ARCHIVE
  • Merch/Support
    ▼
    • Bookshop Store
    • 2021 Un-Convention MERCH
    • 2022 Conference Merch
    • RedBubble Store
    • DONATE
  • Contact
    ▼
    • Contact Form/Email
    • Social Media
Graphic Medicine
  • Home
  • About
    • What is Graphic Medicine?
    • Graphic Medicine International Collective
      • GMIC Board Resources
    • Website Team
    • Related Sites
      • Medicina Grafica
      • Japanese Graphic Medicine Association
      • Graphic Medicine Italia
      • Pathographics
  • Latest
    • News
    • The Graphic Medicine Award
    • The Drawing Together Archive
    • Frontline Workers Comics Project
    • Spotlight Archive
  • Reviews
    • All
    • Editor’s Picks
    • Graphic Novels
    • Educational
    • Manga
    • Write A Review!
  • Conferences
    • 2023 Toronto Conference
    • 2022 Chicago Conference
    • 2021 UnConvention (Virtual) Conference
    • 2020 Toronto Conference
    • 2019 Brighton Conference
    • 2018 Vermont Conference
    • 2017 Seattle Conference
      • Home
      • Program
      • Registration (NOW CLOSED)
      • Lodging in Seattle
      • 2017 Seattle Conference Sponsors
      • Call for Art
      • Press/Media Inquiries
    • 2016 Dundee Conference
    • 2015 Riverside Conference
    • 2014 Baltimore Conference
      • Home
      • Program 2014
        • Program 2014
        • Keynote Speakers 2014
        • Marketplace 2014
        • Juried Exhibit 2014
        • Call for Papers 2014 (closed)
      • Accommodation & Travel 2014
        • Accommodation & Travel 2014
        • Additional hotel suggestions
      • Sponsors 2014
      • Baltimore Restaurants & Attractions
      • FAQs 2014
      • Registration 2014 (closed)
    • 2013 Brighton Conference
    • 2012 Toronto Conference
    • 2011 Chicago Conference
    • 2010 London Conference
  • MultiMedia
    • Podcasts
    • A Graphic Medicine Conversation with Sam Hester
    • Graphic Medicine Video Archive
    • Graphic Medicine Exhibits
  • Resources
    • The Peter James Burns Scholarship Fund
    • Essential Graphic Medicine: An Annotated Bibliography
    • COVID-19 Comics
    • Reproductive Freedom Comics
    • Frontline Workers Comics Project
    • The Drawing Together Archive
    • National Library of Medicine Graphic Medicine Exhibit
    • Liaison Program
    • Publishers
    • RESEARCH
    • TEACHING
    • GRAPHIC MEDICINE CONFAB ARCHIVE
  • Merch/Support
    • Bookshop Store
    • 2021 Un-Convention MERCH
    • 2022 Conference Merch
    • RedBubble Store
    • DONATE
  • Contact
    • Contact Form/Email
    • Social Media
Home / Latest / Mita Mahato – Stigmatic Text: Suture and Silence in David Small’s Stitches

Mita Mahato – Stigmatic Text: Suture and Silence in David Small’s Stitches

Feb. 20, 2012 by Comic Nurse

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
[audio src="https://www.graphicmedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Mahato.m4a" /]

Use the Quicktime player above to view images along with the audio. If you don’t have Quicktime, you can listen to the audio-only version below.

https://www.graphicmedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Mahato.mp3

The tense and interrogative relationship between word and image that characterizes the comics genre makes possible David Small’s ironic articulation of sickness as a wordless language. Indeed, the growing catalog of illness autographies attests to the effectiveness of comics in giving individuals the means to express openly and candidly the otherwise silencing and stigmatizing experience of illness. What makes Stitches notable among illness autographies, however, is that it stews in its silence, making the quiet of illness itself a language—a form of communication requiring recognition, translation, and response. In examining how Small “stitches” together the conflicting but overlapping forms of communication he both uses and implies—word, image, sound, silence—I hope to explore how Stitches manipulates the comics format to communicate the silence that often accompanies illness, teaching readers how silence, too, can speak and must be heard.

Mita Mahato is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Puget Sound, where she teaches courses in contemporary Visual and Cultural Studies, we well as nineteenth-century British Literature. Her current research explores the articulation and reception of illness stories in non- traditional narrative forms, including comics, film, and online media. Her essay on the fraught world of illness blogging, “Virtuous Community: Online Storytelling in Leroy Sievers’s My Cancer,” was recently published in Storytelling, Self, Society. She has begun work on a graphic novel/memoir.

Categories: Podcasts Tags: Mita Mahato

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

About Graphic Medicine

Graphic Medicine is a site that explores the interaction between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare. We are a community of academics, health carers, authors, artists, and fans of comics and medicine. The site is maintained by an editorial team under the direction of the Graphic Medicine International Collective.

Subscribe to Graphic Medicine

Join our email list to keep up with the latest Graphic Medicine news!
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Visit Our Sister Site for Spanish Readers

Visit Our Sister Site for Japanese Readers

Visit Our Sister Site for Italian Readers

Visit the Pathographics Project

© 2007 - 2023 Graphic Medicine International Collective

WordPress Developer