Another semester is finally winding down and with it are the requisite papers and reflections. One such reflection, part of a writing course, involved the relationship between memory and research. After spending a semester reading various kinds of memoirs (from the journalistic to the borderline sentimental), we were asked to consider how research can be incorporated into memoir. My response is in graphic form, but hard to read online so there is plain text too beneath it. Scroll on, my readerly friend. (For the particularly curious, you can download a PDF of this small essay (in black and white) here.)

I don’t yet feel like this is a cohesive piece, but more the beginning of ideas, so I’m curious to know what others think of research and graphic nonfiction in particular as a manifestation of research and memory.

Memory

Memory is a biologically compelled reality. For instance, if a human touches fire, she learns that it is hot and does not touch it again; this helps her to survive. As far as we know, information first enters into the body through the senses, and transfers to a short-term compartment in the brain; if we perceive that essential concepts are presented, we store the information in other areas of the brain. You can read more about this from actual scientists, but the point is that memory is a critical human (animal) faculty.

Research

The term research is derived from the Old French re (expressing intensive force) + cerchier (to search). So research is a kind of intense looking, which I think is an extension of memory. Where memory seeks to store information we perceive, research extends and deepens those observations. Both activities help us to make meaning of experience, which the mind wants to do in order to help us make beneficial decisions in the future. Memory is intuitive, unavoidable, and research is intellectually-driven.

Methods of Research

Every field has forms of research. In fact, every human has forms of research. In further fact, I think it’s a kind of BS term culturally appropriated in order to give some kind of legitimacy to various practices. Like when I tell my mentors that I’m deep into my research, all I really mean is that I’m actively remembering certain events or reading books I’m interested in. But the word research is very fancy and they seem to be impressed. Anyway, here are some methods of research in memoir, in illustration, in anything:

• Visiting places from memory or that others have seen
• Interviewing/Conversing
• Searching public records
• Searching through photographs
• Reading publications (books, journals, newspapers, etc)
• Listening to/Watching media to trigger memory

The Graphic Essay

Illustrating my response felt like the most natural process for my ideas and I think the medium has interesting possibility for nonfiction in particular. And I’m not alone. The reason it feels most natural to me, to nonfiction, is because it inherently draws attention to its own medium. Where the hand wobbles, where ink spills, where writing gets sloppy. These all reflect the hand and mind of the author, which seems essential because memory (memoir, nonfiction, facts) is flawed. Jeremy Lehrer talks about the imperfections of memory in one of his books. I began thinking about essays in terms of the graphic because of the most excellent Alison Bechdel, who published a book that you should stop what you’re doing now to read.

Anyway, as rough as these ideas are, I think it’s important to talk about them, since graphic-y literature is often misinterpreted, and unfortunately so because the hybrid medium is beautiful, is authentic, is moving.