[Comicsstudiessociety] Decolonising Comics Studies

[Gardner, Jared]

For reasons I am still trying to figure out, Phil’s message has been getting bounced by the listserv’s ghost in the machine. While I attempt to expel the gremlins, I wanted to pass the message on to the list for discussion:




From: Philip Smith <philipsmithgraduate at googlemail.com<mailto:philipsmithgraduate at googlemail.com>>
Subject: Decolonising Comics Studies
Date: July 29, 2019 at 11:23:16 AM EDT
To: <comicsstudiessociety at lists.osu.edu<mailto:comicsstudiessociety at lists.osu.edu>>


Dear colleagues,

Thank you all for a wonderful conference. I had a fantastic time and came home full of ideas for my teaching and research.

One presentation which gave me a lot of food for thought was Dr. Mickwitz’s call to decolonise Comics Studies by looking to works beyond anglophone comics, francophone comics, and manga. There have, of course, been studies which address comics from beyond these areas (indeed, John Lent has built a career out of mapping, and facilitating the mapping of, the world of comics), but, as Dr. Mickwitz argues, comics in English, French, and Japanese tend to occupy most of our attention. There was some discussion after the talk but, as always, the conversation could have continued. I share below some of the ideas which have been percolating for me:

- Learning a second language is rewarding but may be too large a task for many of us. We can, however, find works which have been translated, hire translators, or study works in English, French, or Japanese from beyond North America,  Europe and Japan - Singapore and many countries in the Caribbean and Africa, for example, have English and English dialects as official languages.
- We can collaborate with scholars who speak other languages.
- When preparing CFPs for conferences, special issues, and books we can ask for papers on works which are not anglophone comics, francophone comics, or manga and prioritise submissions which meet that criteria.
- We can read and cite English-language works by scholars who study comics in other languages.
- English-language Comics Studies journals could offer authors the option to publish translated versions of their papers on the journal website in addition to versions in English.
- Academic presses could publish comics and academic works about comics in translation.

I believe that the process of decolonising Comics Studies should be done with care and respect, ensuring that we approach these works ready to learn and aware of the gaps in our own knowledge. We should prioritise collaborating with and listening to colleagues and creators from overseas.

I would be interested to hear from colleagues (and in particular those who study works in languages other than English, French, and Japanese) other ideas as to how we can expand the range of works which we, as a body of scholars, give our critical attention.

Best wishes,

Phil


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/private/comicsstudiessociety/attachments/20190731/69b78a12/attachment-0001.html>