Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland joined Bangor University as Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies in 2014. Before then, she was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Bath, and a Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Leicester. She holds a PhD in French and Francophone Studies from Bangor University (2011), an MA in European Languages and Cultures from Bangor University (2007), and a BA in German from the Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest (2005). 

Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland's research specialisms include: French and Francophone ecocriticism and environmental humanities, with a focus on environmental violence, resistance and justice; Modern Languages in the Environmental Humanities; text/image and bande dessinée studies; adaptation and intermediality; and Breton Francophone comic art from postcolonial and ecofeminist perspectives. She has published articles on these areas in journals including European Comic Art, Modern Languages Open, Modern and Contemporary France, Studies in Comics and Studies in French Cinema. She is the author of Adapted Voices: Transpositions of Céline’s ‘Voyage au bout de la nuit’ and Queneau’s ‘Zazie dans le métro’ (Oxford: Legenda, 2015). She has co-edited a special issue of European Comic Art on ‘Comics & Adaptation’ (stemming from a conference she co-organised at the University Leicester), and a special issue of Studies in Comics on ‘Comics & Nation’ (also stemming from a conference she co-organised, at Bangor University). She is review co-editor for European Comic Art. 

Her current research project is entitled 'Greening Modern Languages: Narrative, Space and Environmental Justice in Contemporary France, 1945 to Today', and was awarded funding by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Grant Scheme in 2023-2024 (SRG22\220097). This project investigates the relationship between narrative, space and the environment in France since 1945, with a focus on ‘hyper-sites’ of environmental violence and injustice (nuclear sites, factory farms, industrial slaughterhouses, zoos, toxic landscapes, borders). It aims to analyse the cultural narratives and spatial dynamics that have shaped relationships to the nonhuman in contemporary France, and modes of resistance against anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, nationalistic and capitalist divisions of space. The corpus comprises a range of media, as well as scientific writings, direct action, political discourse and material sites. The project develops an ecopolitics of space from the perspectives of multispecies, decolonial, feminist and disabled ecologies, in exposing and contesting environmentally unjust narratives and their fast and slow impacts on bodies and territories, and promoting modes of understanding and sharing territory as more-than-human. Beyond the French context, this leads to a consideration of the role of Modern Languages in the Environmental Humanities, in terms of differences, resonances and (un)translatability in environmental concepts across cultures, and the discipline’s part in collective action towards meaningful sustainability. As part of this project, she has co-organised an International Online Conference on 'Greening Modern Languages Research and Teaching' in March 2023, leading to the creation of a website that features a multilingual lexicon of environmental terms across cultures and pedagogical resources for fostering ecological awareness in the world language classroom (see https://www.ecomodlang.com/); and an online seminar series entitled ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ (February-July 2023), during which artists and activists discussed ways in which their work explores environmental and animal issues (click here for more details). Recordings are available to view on the series' YouTube channel.

Dr Blin-Rolland has begun to explore local benefits and impacts of this research with her follow-on project Cwricwlwm Ieithoedd Modern Gwyrddach i Gymru / A Greener Modern Languages Curriculum for Wales, for which she worked in partnership with GwE Global Futures and award-winning French graphic artist Anne Defreville. The project, which is funded by Bangor University’s Innovation and Impact Award Scheme, aims to develop creative approaches to fostering environmental sustainability in conjunction with international language learning, in line with the holistic ethos of the New Curriculum for Wales, and the Well-being of Future Generations Act. For more information see https://www.ecomodlang.com/resources/cwricwlwm-ieithoedd-modern-gwyrddach-i-gymru-a-greener-modern-languages-curriculum-for-wales/

Email: a.blin-rolland@bangor.ac.uk

Location: room 417, 3rd floor, New Arts building

Undergraduate teaching

LXE-2025: Reading Fantastic Literatures (2nd year)

LXF-2101: Paris - Centres and Margins

LXE-3011: Languages and Ecologies (Final year)

LXF-3122: Postcolonial France (Final year)

LCF/LZF-1001 & 1002: Advanced French 1 and 2 (1st year)

LCF/LZF-2020 & 2040: French language skills (2nd year)

LCF/LZF-3020, 3030 & 3040: French language skills (Final year)

Postgraduate teaching:

LXM-4035: French Film & Comic Adaptation

LXM-4001: Modes of Critical Theory (team-taught)

LXM-4002: Research Methods (team-taught)

LXM-4031: Critical Theory in Practice (team-taught)

Teaching qualification

FHEA

I welcome applications from PhD students in any of my areas of interest, especially French and Francophone ecocriticism and environmental humanities; comics and text/image studies; adaptation studies; intermediality.

2025

  • PublishedDecolonial Visual Narratives of a Nuclear Francosphere
    Blin-Rolland, A., 28 May 2025, Ecotexts in the Postcolonial Francosphere. Mala, N. & Hitchcott, N. (eds.). Liverpool University Press, 272 p.
    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2017

2015

2014

2013

2011

2010

2024

  • Interspecies Collaborations and Ethical Commitments

    Invited Speaker at ‘Tensions’ roundtable, Non-human Animals in the Medical Humanities Network (NAMHN), University of Manchester

    17 Jun 2024

    Activity: Invited talk (Speaker)
  • Bande dessinée, ecoliteracy, environmental justice

    Invited talk in the Seminar Series on Graphic Narratives, 2023-2024, University of Cambridge

    https://www.mmll.cam.ac.uk/news/events-seminar-series-graphic-narratives-2023-24

    23 May 2024

    Links:

    Activity: Invited talk (Speaker)
  • Cwricwlwm Ieithoedd Modern Gwyrddach i Gymru / A Greener Modern Languages Curriculum for Wales

    Cwricwlwm Ieithoedd Modern Gwyrddach i Gymru / A Greener Modern Languages Curriculum for Wales

    Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland (Principal Investigator), Dr Jonathan Lewis (Co-Investigator)

    In May 2024, Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland organised a one-week residence in Bangor with award-winning French graphic artist Anne Defreville, as part of the project Cwricwlwm Ieithoedd Modern Gwyrddach i Gymru / A Greener Modern Languages Curriculum for Wales. Dr Blin-Rolland worked in partnership with GwE Global Futures for this project, which is funded by Bangor University’s Innovation and Impact Award Scheme. Cwricwlwm Ieithoedd Modern Gwyrddach i Gymru / A Greener Modern Languages Curriculum for Wales aims to develop creative approaches to fostering environmental sustainability in conjunction with international language learning, in line with the holistic ethos of the New Curriculum for Wales, and the Well-being of Future Generations Act.

    Across the residence, 68 primary and secondary school pupils from across North Wales took part in innovative workshops, during which they created their own ecological bandes dessinées (French-language comic strips) and a multilingual ‘natural mural’.

    Feedback from pupils and teachers was very positive, with teachers praising notably the ways the activities covered ‘cross-curricular aspects of the new Curriculum for Wales really well’ and that pupils ‘get to see French used for a purpose, they also get to focus on issues that are essential to their future’; and pupils commenting that ‘I think it helped get a better understanding of climate change and should be offered to more students’ and ‘I believe that learning about the environment in other lessons, can help people to explore other aspects of the environment from different views’.

    Cwricwlwm Ieithoedd Modern Gwyrddach i Gymru / A Greener Modern Languages Curriculum for Wales is a follow-on project from Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland’s British Academy/Leverhulme Trust-funded project ‘Greening Modern Languages’ (SRG22\220097), which brings together an international network of scholars and educators working across language specialisms to reflect on the place of Modern Languages in collective action towards sustainability (https://www.ecomodlang.com/).

    For more information please see https://www.ecomodlang.com/resources/cwricwlwm-ieithoedd-modern-gwyrddach-i-gymru-a-greener-modern-languages-curriculum-for-wales/

    1 May 2024 – 3 May 2024

    Links:

    Activity: Types of Public engagement and outreach - Schools engagement (Contributor)

2023

  • BU-IIA Funded Project: A Greener Modern Language Curriculum for Wales: Creative Approaches to Fostering Environmental Sustainability and International Language Learning

    Aims: to develop creative approaches to fostering environmental sustainability in conjunction with international language learning. Working in partnership with GwE Global Futures, the project will lead to the creation of research-informed pedagogical resources for embedding environmental awareness in language learning, and the organisation of innovative workshops in Bangor with French graphic artist Anne Defréville, whose award-winning work engages with environmental issues in accessible and original ways. The programme of activities to be carried out in 2023-2024, with a focus on French language education and North Wales, is designed as a pilot scheme to be scaled up and serve as a paradigm for other languages, including Welsh as a second language.

    Funding awarded through the Bangor University Innovation and Impact Award (Research Wales Innovation Funding). Value = £4340

    1 Aug 2023 – 31 Jul 2024

    Activity: Other (Contributor)
  • Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives online seminar series: talk and discussion with comics writer Jessica Oublié

    Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives: an online seminar series, February-July 2023

    Fifth and last seminar on 19th July, 4.30-5.30pm BST: talk and Q&A with comics writer Jessica Oublié

    For our last seminar in this series it is an honour to welcome comics writer Jessica Oublié. She is the author of the documentary graphic narratives Péyi an nou (2017), on the migration of French Caribbeans to mainland France in the 1960s-1980s via the state agency BUMIDOM; and Tropiques Toxiques (2020), which will be the focus of this seminar. Tropiques Toxiques explores the toxic history and legacies of the use of Chlordecone pesticide in Guadeloupe and Martinique’s banana plantations between 1972 and 1993, resulting in the poisoning of land, sea, and human and nonhuman bodies. The bande dessinée combines insights from scientific expertise and lived experience in an in-depth investigation of a scandal of environmental injustice and toxic politics. In this seminar Jessica Oublié will talk about the possibilities offered by the comics medium, in terms not only of its complexity but also its accessibility and impact, and the intersections of environmental, political, cultural, historical and social issues, from the situated and planetary perspective of the Antilles.

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is a series of five online seminars in which artists and activists discuss how their work engages with environmental and animal issues, in questioning anthropocentrism and contesting injustice, and with a view towards fostering ecological awareness and meaningful sustainability. Drawing on a broad range of media and artforms (painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, film, writing, graphic narrative), this series explores key topics for our changing world, such as oceanic potentialities, revolutionary popular environmentalism, the biopolitics of industrial slaughter, animal ethics, and decolonial ecology. In doing so, it aims to shine a light on the varied modes of resistance deployed by artists and activists to create and share alternative narratives for environmental justice, care and solidarity, engaging with multispecies, feminist, queer, and decolonial ecologies.

    While this series focuses on more-than-human narratives through the lens of contemporary France, it aims to open a dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and activists working in the Environmental Humanities in any subject area. Across the series, we will discuss inspiring and militant ways of exposing and challenging anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, heteronormative, nationalistic, and capitalist ideologies, as well as their material impacts on bodies and territories. We will explore narratives, imaginaries and practices that work to create possibilities for alternative modes of representing, engaging and living with the more-than-human in our troubling times.

    For any questions, please contact the organiser Armelle Blin-Rolland at a.blin-rolland@bangor.ac.uk.

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is funded by the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant scheme (SRG22\220097).

    19 Jul 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)
  • Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives online seminar series: talk and discussion with comics artist Anne Defréville

    Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives: an online seminar series, February-July 2023

    Fourth seminar on 4th July 3.45-5pm BST: ‘Eco-Comics for Better Living in the More-than-Human World’, talk and discussion with comics artist Anne Defréville

    In coordination with Better Living Through Comics: The 2023 Joint Conference of the International Graphic Novel & Comics and the International Bande Dessinée Society

    Anne Defréville (https://www.annedefreville.com/) is a visual artist, designer, illustrator and comics artist. She is deeply committed to ecology, and much of her comics work has focused on environmental and animal issues. She has worked in collaboration with INSERM (the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) and many environmental associations. Her bandes dessinées challenge anthropocentrism in creative, sometimes humorous, and always thought-provoking ways, shifting across autobiography, documentary and science fiction. She is the author of L’Age bleu [The blue age] (2019), which was awarded the 2020 Artemisia Prize for the Environment and the Mouans-Sartoux Prize for best environmental book; Journal anthropique de la cause animale [Anthropogenic diary of the animal cause] (2022); Mémoires d’un cétacé [Memoirs of a cetacean] (2023); and SEFARDIM, l’épopée d’une famille juive durant 3,000 ans [Sefardim, the 3,000-year saga of a Jewish family] (2023).

    All are welcome to attend this free event, which will be held online via Zoom on Tuesday 4th July 3.45-5pm BST. The seminar will be in English. You will need to register in advance to receive the online joining link. Please note that if you already registered for the IBDS / IGNCC conference, you do not need to register for this seminar again as you will automatically be sent the joining link.

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is a series of five online seminars in which artists and activists discuss how their work engages with environmental and animal issues, in questioning anthropocentrism and contesting injustice, and with a view towards fostering ecological awareness and meaningful sustainability. Drawing on a broad range of media and artforms (painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, film, writing, graphic narrative), this series explores key topics for our changing world, such as oceanic potentialities, revolutionary popular environmentalism, the biopolitics of industrial slaughter, animal ethics, and decolonial ecology. In doing so, it aims to shine a light on the varied modes of resistance deployed by artists and activists to create and share alternative narratives for environmental justice, care and solidarity, engaging with multispecies, feminist, queer, and decolonial ecologies.

    While this series focuses on more-than-human narratives through the lens of contemporary France, it aims to open a dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and activists working in the Environmental Humanities in any subject area. Across the series, we will discuss inspiring and militant ways of exposing and challenging anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, heteronormative, nationalistic, and capitalist ideologies, as well as their material impacts on bodies and territories. We will explore narratives, imaginaries and practices that work to create possibilities for alternative modes of representing, engaging and living with the more-than-human in our troubling times.

    For any questions, please contact the organiser Armelle Blin-Rolland at a.blin-rolland@bangor.ac.uk.

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is funded by the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant scheme (SRG22\220097).

    4 Jul 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)
  • Récits des vivants/More-than-human narratives series: talk and discussion with filmmaker Maud Alpi

    Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives: an online seminar series, February-July 2023

    Third seminar on 19th April 2-3pm BST: talk and discussion with film director Maud Alpi

    ‘Les bêtes arrivent la nuit. Elles sentent. Elles résistent. Avant l’aube, un jeune homme les conduit à la mort. Son chien découvre un monde effrayant qui semble ne jamais devoir s’arrêter.’

    ‘The animals arrive by night. They intuit. They resist. A young man leads them to their deaths before dawn. His dog discovers a terrifying world that seems certain never to end.’

    For the third seminar in our online series, we are delighted to welcome Maud Alpi. Maud Alpi is the award-winning director of the short films Le fils de la sorcière (2004), Nice (2009), Drakkar (2015), and the feature-length film Gorge Cœur Ventre/Still Life (2016), which was shot in a working slaughterhouse and on which this seminar will focus. During this seminar Maud Api will talk about the context in which she made the film, how her initial script and ideas evolved in contact with the non-human animals that are at the core of the film, and the aesthetic, ethical and political issues it raises for creating and articulating more-than-human narratives.

    All are welcome to attend this free event, which will be held online via Zoom on Wednesday 19th April 2-3pm BST. The seminar will be in English. You will need to register in advance to receive the online joining link.

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is a series of five online seminars in which artists and activists discuss how their work engages with environmental and animal issues, in questioning anthropocentrism and contesting injustice, and with a view towards fostering ecological awareness and meaningful sustainability. Drawing on a broad range of media and artforms (painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, film, writing, graphic narrative), this series explores key topics for our changing world, such as oceanic potentialities, revolutionary popular environmentalism, the biopolitics of industrial slaughter, animal ethics, and decolonial ecology. In doing so, it aims to shine a light on the varied modes of resistance deployed by artists and activists to create and share alternative narratives for environmental justice, care and solidarity, engaging with multispecies, feminist, queer, and decolonial ecologies.

    While this series focuses on more-than-human narratives through the lens of contemporary France, it aims to open a dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and activists working in the Environmental Humanities in any subject area. Across the series, we will discuss inspiring and militant ways of exposing and challenging anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, heteronormative, nationalistic, and capitalist ideologies, as well as their material impacts on bodies and territories. We will explore narratives, imaginaries and practices that work to create possibilities for alternative modes of representing, engaging and living with the more-than-human in our troubling times.

    For any questions, please contact the organiser Armelle Blin-Rolland at a.blin-rolland@bangor.ac.uk.

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is funded by the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant scheme (SRG22\220097).

    19 Apr 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)
  • Greening Modern Languages Research and Teaching

    The conference programme is available to view at https://www.ecomodlang.com/programme/

    The three-day international online conference ‘Greening Modern Languages Research and Teaching’ will reflect on the role Modern Languages as a discipline has to play in times of ecological crises, in rethinking our academic practice as educators, scholars and eco-citizens, and ways in which this intersects with current efforts to decentre and decolonise the curriculum. The conference will open a reflection on the place of Modern Languages in the Environmental Humanities and in collective action towards environmental sustainability and justice.

    As a discipline that has been profoundly and productively decentred in the postcolonial context, moving beyond the nations that ‘for a long time, determined [its] boundaries’ (Forsdick 2015: 2), how might Modern Languages contribute to developing and rethinking our sense of place and sense of planet (Heise 2008) in times of climate emergency and the sixth mass extinction? How may Modern Languages take part in challenging the universalism of monolingualism and of the ‘Age of Man’? What role can Modern Languages play in the Environmental Humanities and the ‘‘‘unsettling’’ of dominant narratives’ and exploration of ‘the implications of new narratives that are calibrated to the realities of our changing world’ (Bird Rose, van Dooren, Chrulew, Cooke, Kearnes and O’Gorman 2012)? What methodologies, concepts and multilingual lexicon does the transnational and cross-disciplinary field of Modern Languages offer to rethink our relationship to the more-than-human? How may we, as Modern Languages scholars and educators, contribute to meaningful and significant sustainability, while navigating the pitfalls of a term that green capitalism has attempted to void of its potential for political dissensus? What possibilities are there for those working within unsustainable higher education systems?

    These are some of the key questions that this conference will explore. As part of the conference there will be workshops to collaboratively build a multilingual lexicon of environmental keywords across cultures, and to share pedagogical resources for developing ecological awareness in conjunction with linguistic and cultural diversity.

    The conference will feature a talk and discussion with political scientist, author and activist Fatima Ouassak, as part of the ‘Récits des vivants/More-than-human narratives’ online seminar series. The seminar will take place 4-5pm GMT on 23rd March and will be in French with simultaneous English translation.

    ‘Greening Modern Languages Research and Teaching’ is funded by the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant scheme (SRG22\220097).

    23 Mar 2023 – 25 Mar 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)
  • Récits des vivants/More-than-human narratives series: talk and discussion with activist and author Fatima Ouassak

    For the second seminar in our online series, it is an honour to welcome Fatima Ouassak, who is a political scientist, author and activist, and a key and vital voice in contemporary environmentalism in France. A militant for a feminist, popular, antiracist and radical ecology, she is the author of La Puissance des mères, pour un nouveau sujet révolutionnaire [The power of mothers: for a new revolutionary subject] (2020); and Pour une écologie pirate. Et nous serons libres [For a pirate ecology. And we will be free] (2023). Fatima Ouassak is the founder of the Classe/Genre/Race network, and co-founder of the association Front de mères (Mothers’ Front) and the Maison d’Écologie populaire Verdragon (Centre of Popular Ecology). During this seminar Fatima Ouassak will talk about her activism and her call for a pirate ecology. The talk and discussion will be in French with simultaneous English translation.

    23 Mar 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)
  • Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives online seminar series: talk and discussion with visual artist Alexander LeeRécits des vivants / More-than-human narratives: an online seminar series, February-July 2023

    First seminar on 8th February 1-2pm UK time: talk and discussion with visual artist Alexander Lee

    Alexander Lee was born in Stockton, CA, and grew up on the island of Tahiti, French Polynesia. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts (2000), his MFA from Columbia University (2002), and MPS from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University (2004). His work, which has been exhibited extensively worldwide, spans drawing, sculpture, performance, painting and video, forming a thought-provoking decolonial practice-based reflection on Polynesia’s pasts, presents and futures and on environmental collapse from the multi-layered perspectives of the Pacific. Drawing on Polynesian natural-cultural forms, concepts and images, questioning and dismantling the history and legacy of imperialism and colonial narratives, Lee’s work is concerned with the necessity and urgency of transformation on our changing planet.

    All are welcome to attend this free event, which will be held online via Zoom on 8th February 1-2pm UK time. You will need to register in advance to receive the online joining link. To register please go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/recits-des-vivantsmore-than-human-narratives-seminar-series-alexander-lee-tickets-524684915707

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is a series of five online seminars in which artists and activists will discuss how their work engages with environmental and animal questions, in questioning anthropocentrism and contesting injustice, and with a view towards fostering ecological awareness and meaningful sustainability. Drawing on a broad range of media and artforms (painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, film, writing, graphic narrative), this series will explore key topics for our changing world, such as oceanic potentialities, revolutionary popular environmentalism, the biopolitics of industrial slaughter, animal ethics, and decolonial ecology. In doing so, it will shine a light on the varied modes of resistance deployed by artists and activists to create and share alternative narratives for environmental justice, care and solidarity, engaging with multispecies, feminist, queer, and decolonial ecologies.

    While this series will focus on more-than-human narratives through the lens of contemporary France, it aims to open a dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and activists working in the Environmental Humanities in any subject area. Across the series, we will discuss inspiring and militant ways of exposing and challenging anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, heteronormative, nationalistic, and capitalist ideologies, as well as their material impacts on bodies and territories. We will explore narratives, imaginaries and practices that work to create possibilities for alternative modes of representing, engaging and living with the more-than-human in our troubling times.

    All the seminars will be in English (with the exception of the fifth seminar, which will be delivered in French with English simultaneous translation available).

    After our first event with Alexander Lee, the following seminars in the ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ series will feature:

    Seminar 2 – 23rd March, 4pm UK time: political scientist, activist and author Fatima Ouassak

    Seminar 3 – 19th April, 2pm UK time: film director Maud Alpi

    Seminar 4 – 4th July, 3.45pm UK time: comics artist Anne Defréville

    Seminar 5 – comics writer Jessica Oublié (mid-July, exact date TBC)

    ‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is funded by the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant scheme (SRG22\220097).

    8 Feb 2023

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)

2022

2021

2020

2019

  • Sketching/Scripting Women: Women and Politics in Bande dessinee, Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing, Institute of Advanced Study, University of London

    Event funded by: the Cassal Fund, IMLR (£708)

    Since the mid-1990s, female artists have become an increasingly visible presence in bande dessinée (French-language comic art), a medium with which women were previously rarely associated as creators or even consumers. Research concerning the work of Francophone female graphic novelists has been slow to emerge but is now a growing field. The primary goal of the seminars in the Sketching/Scripting Women series is therefore to contribute to and help steer the development of research into female bande dessinée creation, by bringing together practitioners, academics and the general public.

    The Spring 2019 seminar in this series centred on the theme of ‘Women and Politics in Bande dessinée’, which were discussed by four speakers: three academics (Dr Ann Miller as a keynote speaker, Dr Edward Still and Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland), and a prize-winning graphic novelist (Tanx). The three academic papers explored questions of the relationship between women and politics in female-authored bandes dessinées that focus on different historical and geographical contexts. Dr Ann Miller (University of Leicester) presented a keynote speech on ‘The Nude and the Naked: From Fine Art to Comics’; Dr Edward Still (University of Birmingham) presented a paper on ‘‘‘Monstrez-vous en tutu”: Obsessional Feminine Identity and Interpersonal Histories in the Bandes Dessinées of Nawel Louerrad’; and Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland (Bangor University) presented a paper on ‘Ecopolitics, Gender and Brittany in Bande dessinée’.

    Following the three academic papers, graphic novelist Tanx spoke (in French) about her oeuvre and discuss her experience as a female artist in the French comics industry. Tanx’s work, with its distinctive underground and rock-inspired aesthetics, explores and subverts cultural and artistic representations of gender and the female body. Tanx was the 2009 co-recipient (for Esthétique et filatures, co-authored with Lisa Mendel) of the Prix Artémisia, an award created to honour the best female-created bande dessinée published each year.

    26 Apr 2019

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in Academic conference (Organiser)
  • Studies in Comics (Journal)

    Co-guest editor of the Special Issue of Studies in Comics on 'Comics & Nation'

    2019

    Activity: Editorial activity (Guest editor)

2017

  • ASMCF Conference (Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France): Work & Play

    From the Tennis Court Oath to Nuit Debout, work and play have been instrumental in organising socio-political life in the French Republic. Culturally too, work and play are formative of identity, inviting reflection on the power relations at stake in the construction and deconstruction of identities. This conference seeks to bring together a broad range of disciplinary approaches to consider theories, representations, practices and interconnections of work and play in France and the rest of the French-speaking world. Traversing sociological, political, anthropological as well as aesthetic and cultural spheres, the conference theme is intended to stimulate debate across a far-reaching horizon of enquiry.

    Keynote Speakers:

    Helen Abbott (University of Birmingham)

    Claude Boli (Responsable scientifique du Musée National du Sport, Nice)

    Sarah Waters (University of Leeds)

    7 Sep 2017 – 9 Sep 2017

    Links:

    Activity: Participation in Academic workshop, seminar, course (Organiser)
  • Comics & Nation

    With the generous support of the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF)

    In recent years, the rise of the ‘graphic novel’ has boosted academic interest in comic art from different disciplines and fields of study. Graphic texts, in their multiple forms and genres, have been a cultural manifestation reflecting societal changes, historical tensions and also their effects on individual stories since their inception. Comics have also been instrumental in the construction of national identities, both in nation-states and in stateless nations.

    This conference aims to put into dialogue scholars working on a variety of cultures and disciplines to provide a forum for the discussion of the interrelation between comic art (comic books and strips, cartoons and caricature) and nation, placing special emphasis on text/image creation from minority cultures (e.g. Brittany, Corsica, Galicia, Catalonia, Wales, Scotland, Sardinia, etc.) but also including those from nation-states (e.g. UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc.).

    13 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017

    Activity: Participation in Academic conference (Organiser)
  • European Comic Art (Journal)

    Review co-editor

    2017 – 2023

    Activity: Editorial activity (Editor)

2016

  • European Comic Art (Journal)

    Co-editor of a special issue of European Comic Art on 'Comics & Adaptation'

    1 Jan 2016 – 15 Jan 2017

    Activity: Publication peer-review (Guest editor)

2015

  • Comics & Adaptation in the European Context

    With the generous support of:

    the Society for French Studies (SFS)

    the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF)

    10 Apr 2015

    Activity: Participation in Academic conference (Organiser)

  • Narratives of a More-than-human France, 1945 to Today: Space, Environment, Resistance

    01/09/2022 – 15/06/2024 (Finished)

  • Conference: Comics and Nation

    01/07/2017 – 30/11/2017 (Finished)

    Description

    In recent years, the rise of the ‘graphic novel’ has boosted academic interest in comic art from different disciplines and fields of study. Graphic texts, in their multiple forms and genres, have been a cultural manifestation reflecting societal changes, historical tensions and also their effects on individual stories since their inception. Comics have also been instrumental in the construction of national identities, both in nation-states and in stateless nations.

    This conference aims to put into dialogue scholars working on a variety of cultures and disciplines to provide a forum for the discussion of the interrelation between comic art (comic books and strips, cartoons and caricature) and nation, placing special emphasis on text/image creation from minority cultures (e.g. Brittany, Catalonia, Corsica, Galicia, Kurdistan, Mapuche, Quebec, Scotland, Wales, etc.) but also including those from nation-states (e.g. China, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, UK, etc.).

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