Visiting scholar Silvia Gianni will give a talk on 17 June, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm in the Camelot room (3rd floor of the Blandijn).

All are welcome!

Dystopian Adaptations from Literature to Comics: Theory, History, and Poetics

This research investigates literary adaptations into comics and graphic novels within the dystopian genre, focusing on their aesthetic and cultural status. While film adaptations are often recognised as autonomous artistic works, comic adaptations continue to be viewed primarily as derivative versions of literary classics. This asymmetry raises important questions concerning both adaptation theory and the cultural legitimacy of comics.

The project aims to examine whether and how dystopian comic adaptations can be understood as aesthetically autonomous works, capable of generating meanings and forms that are not reducible to their source texts. In doing so, it revisits key issues in comics studies and adaptation theory, including the relationship between comics and literature, the artistic autonomy of the medium, the role of the graphic novel in processes of cultural legitimisation, and the tension between originality and convention in intermedial adaptation.

The research begins with a mapping and systematisation of dystopian comic and graphic novel adaptations, analysing their production, circulation, and reception. It then reconstructs the history of dystopian comics as a tradition with influences, developments, and aesthetic conventions distinct from those of dystopian literature. From this perspective, adaptations are examined not only as derivations from literary works but also as contributions to the evolution of dystopian comics.

Finally, through a series of case studies, the project explores how adaptations negotiate originality and convention, particularly in their representation of alterity, a central feature of dystopian poetics. The study ultimately seeks to offer a more nuanced understanding of adaptation as a creative practice and to highlight the specific contribution of comics to the construction of contemporary dystopian imaginaries.

Dr. Amadeo Gandolfo will give a talk on the Works and Life of Oski next week!

All are welcome!

La deuxième séance du séminaire PatrimoniaLitté sur la patrimonialisation des cultures populaires et médiatiques aura lieu à la bibliothèque de la Faculté des Arts de l’Université de Gand (Library Lab Loveling), 21 février du 14h à 16h.

Périodiques de jeunesse

Maaheen Ahmed (UGent), “(Re-)mettre en boîte : les plusieurs vies de la collection Van Passen”

Hélène Veilhan (MSH Clermont-Ferrand), “L’intention patrimoniale de Jean et Michel Bastaire, collectionneurs de littérature populaire”

Tous les séances du séminaire sont en mode hybride. Merci de contacter benoit.crucifix@kuleuven.be pour obtenir un lien de connexion.

We’re delighted to organize a symposium on comics productions with Gareth Brookes (University of the Arts London), Paul Williams (University of Exeter) and Sylvain Lesage (Université de Lille)! Everyone’s welcome!

Abstracts of the talks are available here.

Ivan Lima Gomes, Politics and criticism in the Latin American comics world during the 1960s and 1970s

4 January 2024, 2:00-3:30 PM, Camelot room, third floor, Blandijn

We are delighted to welcome Ivan Lima Gomes who will give the first ACME and COMICS talk for 2024 on his completed and ongoing projects on Latin American children’s comics!

Abstract

Within Latin America, the 1960s and the 1970s constitute a pivotal period for the comics art world. It was a moment when comics artists and intellectuals sought to assert what meant to produce comics in the region, establishing a clear contrast between the Latin American historietas/quadrinhos and the American comics. Echoing critiques against the “dependency” condition and the U.S. “cultural imperialism”, several Latin American editorial projects aimed at introducing new characters and themes to the comics scene. Simultaneously, a range of publications endeavours to establish critical guidelines for the interpretation of comics in the region. This conference will address both aspects through two case studies: “Bingo, o pequeno jornaleiro,” a Brazilian comic strip published in the first half of the 1960s, whose stories unfold in low-income housing – favelas – and address issues such as blackness and poverty; and the intellectual debates on comics that resonates during the 1960s and 1970s in one of the foremost Latin American cultural magazines of the 20th century, the Cuban magazine Casa de las Américas.

Bio

Ivan Lima Gomes is Adjunct Professor for Latin American History and a CNPq funded scholar at the Federal University of Goiás, who works on image and text interactions in Latin American literature. Main topics of interest: Book History, Comics Studies and Latin American Studies, focusing on Memory, Historical Representation and Public History, with an interdisciplinary perspective. Author of several articles published in academic journals (IJOCA, Casa de las Américas, LARR, Caravelle etc.) and a monograph about comics and politics in Latin America during the 1960-1970, Os novos homens do amanhã: projetos e disputas em torno dos quadrinhos na América Latina. E-mail: igomes2@ufg.br

You are invited to attend our Reading Session with Dr. Barbara Postema (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Tuesday 7 November 2023, 13h30-15h45 pm

Ghent University, campus Blandijn, room Camelot

The two texts we will be discussing are:

• Barbara Postema, ‘Establishing Relations, Photography in Worldless Comics’, Image & Narrative, 2015,  https://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/817.
• Chapter 2 of  Shiamin Kwa, Perfect Copies: Reproduction and the Contemporary Comic. Rutgers University Press, 2023, which discusses the work of artist and comics researcher Gareth Brookes.

Find all information in this BarbaraPostemaPoster.