Beyond witches, mothers or wives

On the power of feminist narratives and historical memory in Manga

Abstract

This paper examines how Manga can be used to counter mainstream historical narratives, taking Fumiyo Kōno’s In This Corner of the World as an example. The first half of the article addresses the connection between feminist historiography and power in a poststructuralist framework. Then, the focus turns towards the Manga to highlight some parallelisms between Kōno’s narrative and feminist history writing. Two main questions are examined: how she depicts womanhood, as well as the political connotations of setting the plot in Hiroshima during World War II.

Keywords: feminism, historiography, Manga, womanhood, memory.