Visual Narratives of Jewish Identity

Abstract

Autobiography and self-reflection on Jewish identity are recurring subjects of the works of Miriam Libicki, a third-generation American-Israeli comic artist. Drawing on a semi-structured interview with Libicki, this article explores how the concept of Jewish identity, both personal and collective, has influenced the artist's creative process throughout her career. Libicki's positionality as a third-generation artist is examined, alongside her oeuvre's place within the current trends of third-generation comics. Libicki's recent work on an SSHRC-funded Holocaust graphic novel project, A Kind of Resistance (2022), led her to undertake a more personal project which examines her grandmother's survival experience, Glasnost Kids (forthcoming). This most recent work on Holocaust narratives has brought Libicki closer to her own Jewish ancestry and has allowed her to further analyse and position her own Jewish identity within both historic and contemporary contexts.