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International French-Language Comics Conference Nov. 2-3: Artists and authors from France, scholars nationwide showcase this fast-evolving art form

10/30/2012

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Composite image created by Michel Pactat, using self-portraits by Zeina Abirached and Clément Baloup.

An international French-Language Comics conference will be held Nov. 2-3. Scholars and cartoonists specializing in French-language comics will present their research. The conference will consolidate recent gains in English-language scholarship on French-language comics and will showcase new avenues of research in this fast-evolving form. It is free and open to the general public. All talks will be in English. Click here for a conference program.

Presentations will be held in room 25 of the Farmer School of Business. Keynote speakers include:

• Thierry Smolderen, comics historian, 9 a.m., Friday, Nov. 2.
Smolderen is a professor at the École Européenne Supérieure de l'Image, in Angoulême. He is coordinator of a program that grants a master's degree in comics, in coordination with the University of Poitiers. He recently published Naissances de la bande dessinée, de William Hogarth à Winsor McCay [The Birth of Comics: From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay] which explores the beginnings of this art form from the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. The book is forthcoming in English translation from the University Press of Mississippi. He has curated numerous comics exhibitions in France and Belgium and is an accomplished script-writer of comics.

• Zeina Abirached, cartoonist, 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3
Abirached, born in Beirut, Lebanon, studied at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA) in El-Koura and at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris. The main subject of her work has been the Lebanese Civil War. She has published several autobiographical comics, including: [Beyrouth] Catharsis [(Beirut) Catharsis] (2006); Le jeu des hirondelles: Mourir, partir, revenir (2007); and Je me souviens: Beyrouth [I Remember: Beirut] (2008). She illustrated Agatha de Beyrouth [Agatha of Beirut] (2011), with text by Jacques Jouet. Mourir, partir, revenir: Le jeu des hirondelles has just been published in English translation as A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return (Graphic Universe/Lerner Books, 2012), for which it received a French Voices grant.

• Clément Baloup, cartoonist, 2:15 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3
Baloup, a cartoonist of Vietnamese and French heritage, has published several graphic narratives devoted to Vietnamese and other groups in France and elsewhere from the colonial period to the present. These include two historical fictions: Le chemin de Tuan [Tuan's Way] (2005) and Le choix de Hai [Hai's Choice] (2007). He has authored two biographical works, Quitter Saigon: Mémoires de Viet Kieu [Leaving Saigon: Memories of Viet Kieu] (2006, 2010) and Little Saigon: Mémoires de Viet Kieu (2012), which respectively tell the stories of Vietnamese emigrants to France and the United States.

The conference is organized by Mark McKinney, professor of French, and is sponsored by the L.P. Irvin Fund of the department of French and Italian; the Center for American and World Cultures; the Humanities Center; the International Visiting Scholar Exchange Fund of the office of international education; the departments of history and of German, Russian, and East Asian Languages;  the Honors and Scholars Program; the Grayson Kirk Fund of the international studies program; and the Miami University Special Events Fund.