Themes and Groups

THEMES AND GROUPS
(by December, 2011)

NNCORE consiste of six groups that each work on a specific comics related theme. These thematic groups constitute the core of the research network as they will generate publications as well as ideas and initiatives for future research projects. For information about a particular group, please contact the group coordinator.

[A] TELLING STORIES, CHALLENGING CONVENTION
The group focuses on the way in which comics communicate narratives within complex networks of visual and textual signs, activating time and space in ways that are unique for the comics medium. The group’s study of comics as fictional narratives contributes to the understanding of specific comics and of comics as a medium, but also more generally, to narrative theory and to the transmedial characteristics of today’s media landscape. The group includes a focus on how the specific ways of telling stories in comics influence ways of imagining the world.

For more information, please contact the group coordinator: Fredrik Strömberg 

[B] COMICS IN BETWEEN: INTERTEXTUALILTY AND INSPIRATION
As a multimodal medium, comics are positioned at the intersection of different media, drawing on literature, film, visual art generally, and more recently, the Internet. The group will study the ways in which different media interact and inspire each other through references, copies, pastiche, caricatures etc. and discuss how this intertextuality/intermediality shape both comics and other media.

For more information, please contact the group coordinator: Michael Prince

[C] CONTESTING - AND CREATING - IDENTITIES AND COMMUNITIES
Traditionally, many comics especially for children have participated in reproducing dominant national identities, but especially within the last 15 years, the medium has started more consistently to question these identities through counter narratives and the inclusion of the individual and of minorities. The emergence of many comics (auto)biographies is one excellent example of this. Another is comics that focus on conflicting national pasts and memories.  The group will study this development from different historical and geographical perspectives.

For more information, please contact the group coordinator: Øyvind Vågnes

[D] THE POWER OF COMICS: PROPAGANDA AND CENSORSHIP
The group will study examples of how comics have been said to explicitly influence society, as political and social critique; as state propaganda or as a potentially damaging influence on children. The most recent example of comics as a potential damning societal influence is the public debate about Manga. The group will include both current and historical perspectives, with examples such as war propaganda and the 1950s debates about comics as a bad influence on children. It will cooperate with the collective research project Censorship, self-censorship and other limitations, with participation of scholars of culture and of law, University of Copenhagen.

The group will study examples of how comics have been said to explicitly influence society, as political and social critique; as state propaganda or as a potentially damaging influence on children. The most recent example of comics as a potential damning societal influence is the public debate about . The group will include both current and historical perspectives, with examples such as war propaganda and the 1950s debates about comics as a bad influence on children. It will cooperate with the collective research project , with participation of scholars of culture and of law, University of Copenhagen.

For more information, please contact the group coordinator: Michael Scholz

[E] MANGA AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF COMICS
Due to its intermedial nature contemporary comics have become a global phenomenon, and comic cultures around the world influence each other in style and themes. This has been particularly significant in regards to Japanese manga, which has become one of the most popular comic genres in Europe, the US, as well as in other Asian countries. The group will study Japanese and other Asian comics as a popular cultural phenomenon in its own right, as well as focus on the mutual interaction of comic cultures in a globalized context.

For more information, please contact the group coordinator: Svenn-Arve Myklebost

[F] LEARNING FROM AND THROUGH COMICS: COMICS AS A DIDACTIC TOOL
Comics hold a didactic potential due to their specific ways of telling stories in combinations of word and image, and the group will discuss how comics can be used on all educational levels, incl. a focus on visual literacy. The group is part of an expanding field, e.g. with the creation of the first academic journal. The group will work together with the Centre for Children’s Literature, Aarhus University, Denmark.

For more information, please contact the group coordinator: Marianne Eskebæk Larsen