Epop Newsletter #2 - March 2009

Contents of this issue 1) EPOP database to be tested, p. 1 2) The Leiden EPOP members, p. 2 3) News, p. 3 4) Recent publications on popular literature, p. 4

Editorial Welcome to the Spring issue of the EPOP Project Newsletter. Popular Roots of European Culture through Film, Comics and Serialized Literature is funded by the European Culture Programme 2007. Please send all contributions to: [email protected].

1) EPOP database to be tested The diversity of the research output envisaged by EPOP demands a concerted and tightly controlled data gathering effort. An online database will be created to aid in this effort. At the first meeting of the EPOP project members, in Limoges in December 2008, a design for such a database was first sketched out. Now the Géomatique department of the University of Limoges has implemented a prototype that can be put to the test over the next couple of months. The EPOP Project aims to deliver a diverse research output, including a virtual museum, a collection of essays, a website, and an educational cd-rom. All of these products will be based on information collected in a database. The usefulness of such a tool is self-evident: the storage of qualitative information in a such a way that it can also be quantified enables the handling of a large amount of comparative data. It also allows new corpora to emerge from the data. Furthermore, as an online resource, the database will give to the EPOP network members the possibility to contribute remotely according to their specific competences.

The EPOP database will collect exhaustive information about the canon of popular texts which forms the root of European media culture. The stake is of great relevance, since the large popularity of these works does not imply that we are provided with a specialized and full knowledge of them. Their ability to migrate from one medium to another and across national boundaries make it, paradoxically, difficult to trace the genesis and circulation and of popular culture texts. Using the tools provided by national libraries (notably through the The European Library portal, which makes the catalogue of European libraries available at http:// 1

search.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/en/index.html) the EPOP network will try to fill the gaps in the knowledge of this corpus thanks to the use of the archives and data supplied by previous research. During the month of April an EPOP database prototype will be tested by the EPOP network researchers. Its framework was designed by Farid Boumédiène, at Géomatique of the University of Limoges. This experimental phase will last one month and be limited to written texts (novels, ‘cinéromans’, feuilleton and comics). If the results are positive the database can be placed online, completed with a shared data capture interface (in PHP/MySQL format). The prototype will then be extended to include performing arts and audiovisual texts.

When finished, the EPOP database will permit to rapidly obtain carefully verified information about the history of the texts to be studied. Which is the first edition of a given work? How many translations have been made? What reviews are there? The systematic addition of geographical data, concerning authors, editions, but also the narratives themselves, will allow the European dimension of the texts to be explored as well, visualizing how they belong to a transnational culture. In conclusion, the database will help us to understand how we get from the ‘roots’ of media culture to the rhizomes and networks which grew up in nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe, riddled by questions of national identity.

2) The Leiden EPOP members

to an ever-growing participation in print culture, both at the production and at the consumption end. The social significance of this vigorous development of mass literacy can hardly be underestimated. The role of all forms of popular literature in this development was obviously great. Popular literature can be said to have been both cause and consequence of the increasing participation in print culture. It had an emancipating function, but equally served to perpetuate stereotypes of all kinds. That more attention for the phenomenon of popular literature is warranted will have become clear. This is as true from a book studies point of view as it is from the perspective of literary studies, cultural studies, translation studies and, not least, media studies. At the same time as the book’s social importance grew, new—mass—media made their appearance, such as film, radio, and later television. This meant that the place of the book in society had to be constantly redefined. Naturally, the definition of literacy, too, had to change along with the relative position of the book in the total spectrum of the media. The department of Book and Digital Media Studies is very pleased to bring its book studies perspective to the EPOP project.

In the previous newsletter we introduced the EPOP team members of the University of Leiden: Adriaan van der Weel from the department of Book and Digital Media Studies; Yasco Horsman from Comparative Literature (both units in the newly established Institute for Cultural Disciplines in the Faculty of Humanities); and Peter Verhaar, an IT specialist from the University Library. The approach to Book studies taken in the Book and Digital Media Studies department is inspired by the French Annales school, emphasising the role of the book in society at large. The best-known examples of major historical events in which the book was a decisive factor are no doubt the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the scientific revolution. But the evolution of mass literacy in the nineteenth century is no less momentous. In the course of that single century in Europe a virtually complete literacy was achieved. Social reform movements, followed by emancipation movements—of workers, women, religious groups, and ethnic and linguistic minorities—all contributed

2

3) News A Century of Italian Comics The National Committee ‘A Century of Italian Comics’ (Comitato Nazionale Un Secolo di Fumetto Italiano) recently opened its website, which explores the history of Italian comics through the most influential authors, works and characters. It can be accessed at http://www.fumetto100.it/ita/index.asp. Italian Comics were born in 1908 on the pages of Il Corriere dei Piccoli and the Committee celebrates this important anniversary with an exhibition entitled ‘Corriere dei Piccoli. Storie, fumetto e illustrazione per ragazzi’ in Milan (22 January -17 May 2009, Rotonda di Via Besana, via Besana 12 ). Many more activities are planned for the future, such as conferences, books and exhibitions. A number of books related to this celebration were published last year also. • About the history of Italian comics see the collection of essays edited by Sergio Brancato: Il secolo del fumetto: Lo spettacolo a strisce nella società italiana, 1908-2008, Latina: Tunué, 2008; • About the history of Il Corriere dei Piccoli see the anthology edited by Matteo Stefanelli and Fabio Gadduci, Il secolo del Corriere dei Piccoli: Un’antologia del più amato settimanale illustrato, Milano: Rizzoli, 2008; • About Antonio Rubino, one of the greatest Italian comic artist who worked on Il Corriere dei Piccoli, see Santo Alligo, Antonio Rubino: I libri illustrati, Torino: Little Nemo, 2008.

Conference on Hergé ‘L’affaire Hergé. Un mythe fondateur? Je dirais même plus !...’ Conference Louvain-la-Neuve, 17 March 2009 Celebrating Tintin’s 80 years, the ‘year of the comics’ in Brussels, and the opening of a museum dedicated to Hergé in Louvain-la-Neuve this year, the GRIT (UCL research group on Image and Text) is pleased to announce a debate about Hergé’s works. The

meeting will be hosted by Pierre Marlet (ULB & Belgium’s national television network) and will bring together several Hergé connoisseurs and/or comics strip specialists: Jan Baetens, Vincent Baudoux, Philippe Godin, Jean-Claude Jouret, Philippe Marion, Jean-Louis Tilleuil, etc. It will take place March 17 from 6 pm to 8 pm at the Salle du Conseil of UCL’s Faculty of Philosophy and Literature (Arts and Humanities) at 1, Blaise Pascal Sq. in Louvain-laNeuve (Belgium). Among other subjects, Hergé’s influence on European comics strip and European identity will be discussed.

Colloquium on the comic strip ‘Lire et produire des bandes dessinees a l’ecole’, Centre de recherches en didactique de la littérature, Université Stendhal Grenoble III, 19–21 May 2010 (http://www.fabula.org/actualites/ article29689.php) The Centre de recherches en didactique de la littérature (cedilit)is organising a colloquium on the use of the bande dessinée (bd) in the (French) school curriculum. Noting that the bd is beginning to be taken more seriously, the organisers aim to stimulate pedagogical and didactic reflexion on the use of the medium in schools. The focus will be on primary and secondary schools, but pedagogical experience with its application in the university curriculum will also be considered. Paper proposals may be sent to Nicolas Rouvière ([email protected]) or Jean-François Massol ([email protected]) before 30 June 2009 The official language of the colloquium will be French.

Colloquium on Jules Verne’s Voyages extraordinaires ‘Les Voyages extraordinaires de Jules Verne: de la création à la réception’, Centre d’études du roman et du romanesque de l’Université de Picardie Jules 3

Verne, 18–20 November 2010 (http:// www.fabula.org/actualites/article26107.php) The colloquium will address questions concerning the authorial production of Jules Verne’s work on the one hand and concerning its public reception on the other. Of particular interest to EPOP members will be the question about the reception of Jules Verne’s oeuvre abroad. Are there national or regional

4) Recent publications on popular literature Galli Mastrodonato, Paola Irene (ed.) Il tesoro di Emilio. Omaggio a Salgari, Imola, Bacchilega Editore, 2008, 160 pages, http://www.bacchilegaeditore.it/ home_bacchilegaeditore.php? n=libri&book_id=77&l=it. Il tesoro di Emilio contains the proceeding of a conference on to the work of Emilio Salgari, which was held in Ostia Lido (Rome) on 2 and 3 April 2007. Contributors include scholars, writers, directors, and journalists such as Giulio Leoni, Ann Lawson Lucas, Maria Gabriella Dionisi, Daniele Cicuzza, Gianfranco De Turris, Paola Irene Galli Mastrodonato, Ada Neiger, Roberto Fioraso, Fabrizio Foni, Claudio Gallo, Giulia Gadaleta, Corrado Farina, Nicoletta Gruppi, Alessandro Bottero, Luigi De Liguori, Umberto Lenzi (interviewed by Corrado Farina). Afterword by Vittorio Frigerio.

differences in the reception of individual works, and is it possible to discern a geographical and chronological order in the publication of translations or adaptations of the oeuvre? Paper proposals may be sent to Marie-Françoise Melmoux-Montaubin ([email protected]) or to Christophe Reffait ([email protected]) before 1 September 2009.

Hermesmeier, Wolfgang & Schmatz, Stefan (ed.), KarlMay Jahrbuch 1935, Bamberg Rade-beul, Karl-May Verlag, 2009, 480 pages, http://www.karl-mayverlag.de/frame.htm?http://www.karl-mayverlag.de/modules/kmprod.php? index=B&nr=01935 Petzel, Michael & Wehnert, Jürgen (ed.), Karl-May Welten III, Bamberg Radebeul, Karl-May Verlag, 2009, 232 pages, http://www.karl-may-verlag.de/ frame.htm?http://www.karl-may-verlag.de/ modules/kmprod.php?index=B&nr=03027 Hubbard, Tom (ed.), Rudyard Kipling, London, Pickering & Chatto, 2009, 431 pages, http:// www.pickeringchatto.com/major_works/ lives_of_victorian_literary_figures_part_vii Stiebel, Lindy (ed.), Henry Rider Haggard, London, Pickering & Chatto, 2009, 351 pages, http:// www.pickeringchatto.com/major_works/ lives_of_victorian_literary_figures_part_vii Radford, Andrew, Victorian Sensation Fiction, New York, Palgrave Macmillan 2009, 217, pages, http:// www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=279173 Marginalia: Bulletin bibliographique des études sur les littératures et les films populaires, n. 60, March 2009, http://www.cerli.org/bibliographie/Marginalia/

About this Newsletter: EPOP Project Newsletter provides news about the development of the project activities and circulates information on research, initiatives and events concerning the history of European popular culture. The newsletter will normally be published monthly. To be removed from our mailing list, just click reply, and put 'remove' in the subject line. We will immediately remove your email address from our mailing-list. This publication reflects the views only of its authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 4