[Comicsstudiessociety] Decolonising Comics Studies

[Charles Hatfield]

Dear Phil,

Thank you for raising this issue, following up on the urgent questions
posed by Nina Mickwitz's excellent presentation last Saturday. I especially
appreciate the concreteness and pragmatism of your recommendations (Nina
had asked, in effect, *What can we actually do?*). As it happens, I have
begun raising this issue with CSS officers in the hopes that the Society
will take concrete steps toward decolonial and more fully inclusive
programming as a regular practice. There will surely be practical hurdles
to the implementation of such changes, but together we as a society can
work to overleap those obstacles.

COMICS/POLITICS provided a number of good examples of what decolonial
conference programming can look like: e.g., the Indigenous Comics panel
last Thursday; the roundtable on feminist comics of the Baltic Sea region
on Saturday. I hope every year's CSS conference will include such
programming, allied where possible to journal symposia or other publication
projects. Further, I hope that Phil's wise suggestions can be encouraged
and implemented through such programming.

CH

On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 8:12 AM Gardner, Jared via ComicsStudiesSociety <
comicsstudiessociety at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> *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>
> *Subject: **Decolonising Comics Studies*
> *Date: *July 29, 2019 at 11:23:16 AM EDT
> *To: *<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
>
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