• Home
  • Comic Reviews
    ▼
    • All
    • Editor’s Picks
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comic Books
    • Educational
    • Manga
    • bandes dessinées
    • Web Comics
    • Picture Books
    • Unreviewed
  • Podcast
  • Blog
  • Conferences
    ▼
    • 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
  • Links
    ▼
    • Medicina Grafica (our sister site)
    • National Library of Medicine Graphic Medicine Exhibit
    • Online Articles
    • Comic Sites and Blogs
    • Author and Artist Sites
    • Medical Humanities
  • Publishers
  • About
    ▼
    • Who’s Behind Graphic Medicine?
    • Why “Graphic Medicine”?
    • A Short History of “Art” Comics
  • Contact
  • Shop/Support
Graphic Medicine
  • Home
  • Comic Reviews
    • All
    • Editor’s Picks
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comic Books
    • Educational
    • Manga
    • bandes dessinées
    • Web Comics
    • Picture Books
    • Unreviewed
  • Podcast
  • Blog
  • Conferences
    • 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
  • Links
    • Medicina Grafica (our sister site)
    • National Library of Medicine Graphic Medicine Exhibit
    • Online Articles
    • Comic Sites and Blogs
    • Author and Artist Sites
    • Medical Humanities
  • Publishers
  • About
    • Who’s Behind Graphic Medicine?
    • Why “Graphic Medicine”?
    • A Short History of “Art” Comics
  • Contact
  • Shop/Support
Home / Blog / 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.

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: Graphic Medicine Podcast Tags: Mita Mahato

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

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

  • Subscribe to our iTunes Podcast
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

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.

Shop / Support Us!

Visit Our Sister Site for Spanish Readers

Visit Our Sister Site for Japanese Readers

Visit the Pathographics Project

Graphic Medicine Database

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.

© 2007 - 2021 Graphic Medicine International Collective

WordPress Developer