Graphic novels like The Best We Could Do and also Maus, Art Spiegelman’s seminal portrayal of his Jewish family’s experience during the Holocaust, illustrate the challenges and subtleties of memory – particularly family memory – and the entanglements that arise when narrating history, Mullaney said. In other chapters, she depicts her mother and father back in Vietnam and what their own childhood was like amidst the country’s upheaval. The illustrated memoir shows Bui’s upbringing in suburban California and the complicated memories her parents carry with them as they move about their new life in America. It’s awesome.”įor example, in Thi Bui’s graphic novel The Best We Could Do, themes of displacement and diaspora emerge as she talks about her family’s escape from war-torn Vietnam to the United States. “There’s just so much you can do, and so many questions you can ask, and so many perspective shifts you can carry out – like that! You can just do it – you show them something, they read it and BOOM! It’s like an accelerant.

“It accelerates the process of getting to subtlety,” said Mullaney, a professor of history at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. They not only portray the impact of historic events on everyday lives, but because they can be read in one or two sittings, they get to it at a much faster rate than say a 10,000 word essay or autobiography could. While graphic novels are not a substitute for academic literature, he said he finds them a useful teaching and research tool. Mullaney has incorporated graphic novels in some of his Stanford courses since 2017 in 2020, he taught a course dedicated to the study of world history through comic strip formats. Tom Mullaney, a professor of history in the School of Humanities and Sciences, uses graphic novels in his teachings to help students appreciate different experiences and perspectives throughout history.

Graphic novel displacement