About the Book
Graphic narratives are one of the world's great art forms, but graphic novels and comics from Europe and the United States dominate scholarly conversations about them. Building upon the little extant scholarship on graphic narratives from the Global South, this collection moves beyond a narrow Western approach to this quickly expanding field. By focusing on texts from the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, these essays expand the study of graphic narratives to a global scale.
Graphic Novels and Comics as World Literature is also interested in how these texts engage with, fit in with, or complicate notions of World Literature. The larger theoretical framework of World Literature is joined with the postcolonial, decolonial, Global South, and similar approaches that argue explicitly or implicitly for the viability of non-Western graphic narratives on their own terms. Ultimately, this collection explores the ways that the unique formal qualities of graphic narratives from the Global South intersect with issues facing the study of international literatures, such as translation, commodification, circulation, Orientalism, and many others.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
Introduction: Global South Comics on Their Own Terms
James Hodapp, Northwestern University, Qatar
1. Pages of Exception: Graphic Reportage as World Literature
Dominic Davies, City University London, UK
2. Latin America's Tinta Femenina and Its Place in Graphic "World Literature"
Jasmin Wrobel, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
3. An Alternative Worldliness: Verbal and Visual Experimentations in Fi shiqqat bab el-loq (The Apartment in Bab El-Louk)
Dima Nasser, Brown University, USA
4. Boys Love in Latin America: The Migration of Aesthetics in Contemporary Graphic Narrative
Camila Gutiérrez, Pennsylvania State University, USA
5. A Sociological Approach to Francophone African Comics (1978-2016)
Sandra Federici
6. Born in the “World”: Leila Abdelrazaq's Writing and Art as World Literature
Allison Blecker, Harvard University, USA
7. Utopias Gone Wrong: Representing the Dystopic Urban in the Indian Graphic Narrative
Debadrita Chakraborty, Cardiff University, UK
8. Opening Up a World and the Temporal-Normative Dimension: Keum Suk Gendry-Kim's Grass as World Literature
Jin Lee, Myongji University, South Korea
9. Between the Saltwater and the Desert: Indigenous Australian Tales from the Margins
Catherine Sly, Independent Scholar, Australia
10. A Case Study of Sita's Ramayana, Diasporic Negotiations, COVID-19, and the Television Serial Ramayana
Shilpa Daithota Bhat, Ahmedabad University, India
11. Wakanda as a Sustainable Smart Society: Africanfuturism in Marvel's Black Panther
Jana Fedtke
12. Neoliberal Ideologies in Menggapai Bintang (Reach for the Stars)
Mohd Muzhafar Idrus, Habibah Ismail and Hazlina Abdullah, Universiti Sains Islam, Malaysia
13. “LONG LIVE the Waste!”: Junk Food Bites Back in Jung's Approved for Adoption
Sheng-mei Ma, Michigan State University, USA
Notes on Contributors
Index
About the Author :
James Hodapp is Assistant Professor of English at Northwestern University in Qatar, and editor of Afropolitan Literature as World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2020).
Review :
[In] seeking to broaden the definition of “World Literature” to encompass populations, identities, and countries often dismissed by Western literary studies, this collection advances a central claim relevant to scholars studying visual media in relation to postcolonialism, neoliberalism, identity politics, and marginalization: non-Western graphic novels and comics offer insight into identity politics, cultural backgrounds, and decolonization.
Graphic Novels and Comics as World Literature is a highly compelling read for all scholars who want to expand beyond a Euro-American-Japanese-centric approach in comic research and learn about comics' crucial contribution to world literature. The comprehensive essays in this volume point out the diversity of international comic production, circulation, and reception and stress the multiplicity of comics' structural codes. They outline the need for comic research to push for a decentered approach--by envisioning universality alongside unique perspectives. In doing so, this volume convincingly discusses world literature as a processual concept rather than affirming a normative canon. I consider this volume a key addition to the disputed field of world literature; by addressing the comic medium, it presents an urgently needed debordering in thinking about the world.
A rich journey, this book invites us to an intimate reading of comics as world literature from a Global South perspective. Playful yet aware of what is at stake literarily and politically, it transgresses geographical as well as disciplinary borders and opens our eyes to the stories of those who, more often than not, are denied border crossing. Thoroughly researched, well written, and passionate, it will appeal to literary scholars and comic book fans alike.
