The masterclass sets out to examine the notions of fiction, life-writing and historicity through the medium of comics. Literature has found its way into the form of comics in a range of ways, be it adaptations of literary works or non-fiction narratives using extracts from literary works as scaffolding for autobiographical experiences. By focusing on the latter, in this masterclass we will explore comics from different transnational contexts and examine the ways in which they engage literary fiction to tell their story. In doing so, we will address the questions: what can comics as a form of knowledge contribute to the ways in which we frame historical events, including their ruptures, continuities, and the ways they affect ‘ordinary lives’? What different roles does literary fiction assume in this process? What is at stake when representing difficult, contested historical moments? How do graphic narratives negotiate the tension between the documentary and the aesthetic? How do different media interact on the comics page?

This course focuses on contemporary debates in life writing as a newly emerging field across disciplines. Life writing is an umbrella term for a wide range of writings about one’s own or someone else’s life, such as biography, autobiography, memoir, diary, bio-fiction and travel writing. In the course we will explore various life stories of men and women in the 20th and 21st centuries, who each had their own unique set of life experiences, beliefs and perceptions. This will help gain a richer understanding of how individuals move through, interact with, and are affected by the major events of their time — and how their lives are narrated, either by themselves or by others.

In Tendencies, Sedgwick (2005) wrote, “[q]ueer is a continuing moment, movement, motive—recurrent, eddying, troublant. The word ‘queer’ itself means across—it comes from the Indo-European root -twerkw, which also yields the German quer (transverse), Latin torquere (to twist), English athwart” (p. viii). This seminar explores literature across different cultures, times, and spaces, emphasising Sedgwick’s concept of ‘across-ness’. It introduces foundational texts and theories related to gender and sexuality and provides new and critical perspectives on queer scholarship and activism. We aim to shed light on diverse and complex perspectives, particularly of the Global South.

On December 12th, Prof. Marco Caracciolo (Ghent University) will give a hybrid lecture titled ‘Short Forms and Uncertain Times in Climate Change Fiction,’ as part of a conference on short fiction taking place at the University of Pisa. Prof. Caracciolo’s talk and the ensuing Q&A will be in English, and will be streamed online for OSL students; a Google Meet link will be shared with all registered participants closer to the date of the event.