Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam, Director of the Comic Studies Cluster in the Public Humanities Hub, was recently featured in Pancouver for her presentation at LunarFest 2025.
On February 12 at Green College UBC, Nijdam spoke alongside Taiwanese graphic novelist Ruan Guang-min about the power of comics and graphic novels in shaping historical memory. She emphasized that comics are more than just a storytelling medium—they are a means of preserving and interpreting history in a deeply personal way.“Comics can present not [only] history, but how you remember history,” Nijdam explained. “How you think back to history. How that history is meaningful to people.”
She contrasted comics with traditional historical narratives found in textbooks and documentaries, which can sometimes strip away the humanity of past events. Instead, she highlighted how comics allow readers to see and connect with the individuals who lived through history, offering a counter-narrative to dominant historical accounts.
Nijdam also discussed the significance of Art Spiegelman’s Maus in transforming academic perceptions of comics, as well as the concept of post-memory, which she defined as a way of remembering events that the artist or audience did not directly experience. She further explored how comics can provide new layers of meaning to historical artifacts, bridging the gap between static objects in archives and the lived experiences they represent.
Nijdam’s presentation was part of a collaboration between UBC’s Asian Studies Department, LunarFest Vancouver, and the Hong Kong Studies Initiative.
Read the full Pancouver article here.