Growing up in superdiversity: Reimagining intersectional coming-of-age stories through graphic novels

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore some intercultural/intersectional issues emerging in today’s graphic novels, with special but not exclusive reference to stories whose characters are diverse background youth growing up in heterogeneous/complex environments. The contribution will present, on one hand, the risks of culturalist representations in stories of formation. On the other hand, it will suggest that in various today’s graphic novels a careful attention is paid to plural ways of “coming to age”. Moreover, it will suggest that graphic novels themselves can be seen as innovative languages able to give voice to these plural ways of “coming to age”, and that “reading” such texts can be seen as a valuable exercise to re-imagine today’s complex educational contexts. In this perspective, the paper will draw in particular on works by Derek Kirk Kim.