Author Nora Krug to give Opening Convocation address

Nora Krug. Photo by Nina Subin

Nora Krug, author of “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home,” will give the Luther College Opening Convocation address on Thursday, Sept. 3. Convocation begins at 9:40 a.m. in the Center for Faith and Life Main Hall on campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Krug is associate professor of illustration at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. Her 228-page visual memoir “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home” wrestles with the idea of “Heimat,” the German word for the place that first forms us, where the sensibilities and identity of one generation pass on to the next.

In this visual memoir — equal parts graphic novel, family scrapbook and investigative narrative — Krug draws on letters, archival material, flea market finds and photographs to attempt to understand what it means to belong. A wholly original record of a German woman’s struggle with the weight of catastrophic history, “Belonging” is also a reflection on the responsibility that we all have as inheritors of our countries’ pasts, according to the author’s website.

“Belonging” will be the first book discussed by Luther students enrolled in Paideia for the fall 2026 semester.

“‘Belonging’ asks questions about the boundaries between individual, family and national identities, and about the gap between self-perception and how others see oneself,” said Brian P. Caton, director of the Paideia program at Luther College.

“Belonging” was chosen as a best book of the year by the New York Times, the Guardian, NPR, Kirkus Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. It was the winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, the Art Directors Club Gold and Discipline Winner Cubes, the Society of Illustrators Silver Medal, and the British Book Design and Production Award, among others.

Krug holds a bachelor’s degree from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, a Diplom in visual communications from the University of Arts Berlin, and an M.F.A. in illustration as a visual essay from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She was a fellow at Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies in 2024 and 2025, and was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

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