On March 3, Deutsches Haus at NYU and the University of Cologne New York Office presented “Identity, Belonging, and the Role of the Artist in the Contemporary Graphic Novel,” a conversation between the illustrators and artists Nora Krug and Büke Schwarz, moderated by Professor Stefan Börnchen (University of Cologne). Both Büke Schwarz’s debut graphic novel “Jein” and Nora Krug’s graphic memoir “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home” draw inspiration from their personal histories to tackle the nuanced questions of belonging, identity, and the role of the artist in making sense of the past and the present. Please join us in exploring these intricate and intriguing questions and examining how the format of the graphic novel lends itself to telling these important stories.

About “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home:”

Nora Krug was born decades after the fall of the Nazi regime, but the Second World War cast a long shadow over her childhood and youth in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. Yet she knew little about her own family’s involvement; though all four grandparents lived through the war, they never spoke of it.

After twelve years in the US, Krug realizes that living abroad has only intensified her need to ask the questions she didn’t dare to as a child. Returning to Germany, she visits archives, conducts research, and interviews family members, uncovering in the process the stories of her maternal grandfather, a driving teacher in Karlsruhe during the war, and her father’s brother Franz-Karl, who died as a teenage SS soldier. In this extraordinary quest, “Krug erases the boundaries between comics, scrapbooking, and collage as she endeavors to make sense of 20th-century history, the Holocaust, her German heritage, and her family's place in it all” (The Boston Globe).

About “Jein:”

The protagonist Elâ Wolf is an artist, Berlin resident, and half-Turkish. Although in her opinion, the latter has nothing to do with her art nor the rest of her life. Or at least she thought so until April 16, 2017, the day of the infamous referendum in Turkey, that the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used to disenfranchise democratic structures. Suddenly, the victory of the referendum’s “yes”-faction confronts Elâ with the political reality of her second home. One question becomes ever more pressing: Must she deal with this societal change in her art, and if so, how?

“Jein” is not only the title of Büke Schwarz’s debut but also the title of the art exhibition in her novel. This merged version of “Ja” (German for yes) and “Nein” (German for no) is often associated with spinelessness and lack of confidence. And in today’s society, it is often frowned upon to answer the essential questions of art, politics, and other parts of life with “Jein.” Although these questions are usually very complex, a simple “yes” or “no” is desired. It becomes a challenge for Elâ Wolf to position herself as she and other artists from Berlin try to curate an exhibition. And if that weren’t enough, her conservative father pops up out of nowhere, and she is forced to make even more decisions.

Büke Schwarz's graphic novel shines a light upon how German-Turks deal with the political changes in their homeland and how the politics and censorship efforts by Erdoğan influence their life in Germany. Furthermore, it allows a behind-the-scenes look at the art world and its ambivalent relationship with politics, especially visible in unstable times.

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