![]() In conjunction with the graphic novel, we read several complementary texts. ![]() They hope for Barefoot Gen to be widely read. As my students were quick to note, people everywhere are impacted by war, peace, art, and other topics in the text: for one, nuclear testing impacted a great deal of the United States, both physically and emotionally. These sorts of connections are not essential to understanding or appreciating Barefoot Gen, of course, but did add meaningfully to our classroom discussions. ![]() In addition to being affected by the recent events at Fukushima and debates surrounding nuclear power plants in our region, quite a few of my students know (or knew) hibakusha (people who were affected by atomic bombings), making the text feel even more urgent. Most of the students in my Comparative Literature course Visualizing Social Conflicts at Miyazaki International College in southern Japan had read Keiji Nakazawa’s mostly-autobiographical narrative of the days leading up to and following the bombing of Hiroshima as children (as Hadashi no Gen ) before they met me. Still, at the end of the semester, many of my students reported that Barefoot Gen: Volume One was the most difficult but also the most rewarding text we read. ![]()
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