{"exhibit":{"title":" Silence Speaks: The Quiet Power of Wordless Novels","description":"
An online exhibition of books from Archives & Special Collections The American novelist John Steinbeck once said that \u201cA man without words is a man without thought.\u201d Wordless novels, a genre of visually rendered narratives that were forerunners of today\u2019s graphic novels, challenge this idea. Pioneered in 1918 by Frans Masereel, a Belgian artist who inspired a generation of illustrators (including the first female wordless novelist), the books\u2019 uncaptioned, mostly black-and-white images express the artistic, social, and political turmoil of the years between the First and Second World War. More broadly, they raise timeless questions about the complex relationship between power, knowledge, and silence.<\/p>\n Lack of words, contrary to Steinbeck\u2019s assertion, does not always mean lack of thought. Sometimes, in fact, our minds are at their busiest in moments of quiet, and you only have to turn on today\u2019s 24\/7 news networks to realize that endless words are not necessarily a sign of deep understanding. For all their power to expand knowledge, words can also confine and even inhibit it. Think, for example, about how hard it can be to break free from cherished myths, enshrined in textbooks and other published histories, that have shaped our national and local consciousness, or about how some written forms of communication, such as scientific journals, shut out indigenous ways of knowing. Of course, words can also give the illusion<\/em> of communication. Stripping them away completely is one approach to encountering truth and unshackling the mind. As Francis Bacon observed long ago, \u201cSilence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n This online exhibition introduces major wordless novels in Special Collections at the Western Washington University Libraries. The materials are on display in the Special Collections exhibition gallery on the sixth floor of Wilson Library from September 22, 2021 through June 10, 2022. Credits<\/strong><\/p>\n Exhibition curated by Michael Taylor, Special Collections Librarian<\/p>\n
Western Washington University Libraries
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