Epop Newsletter #7

Editorial List of contents 1. CALL FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE p. 2 2. PROJECT NEWS : WHAT’S A VIRTUAL MUSEUM ? p. 2 2. THE LEEDS POPULAR CULTURES RESEARCH NETWORK p. 5

3. NEWS ON POPULAR CULTURE p. 6 4. CALL FOR PAPERS p. 10

Welcome to the EPOP Project Newsletter. In this number you will find our call for a special issue of this newsletter entirely dedicated to presentations of groups, institutions, associations, journals and websites working on the history of popular culture, a first introduction to the forthcoming EPOP Virtual Museum, the presentation of the Leeds Popular Cultures Research Network, and some news and call for papers on popular culture. The EPOP Project (Popular Roots of European Culture Through Film, Comics and Serialized Literature) is a research and popularization project funded by the European Commission’s Culture Programme 2007 and is promoted by the Department of Music and Performing Arts of the University of Bologna, the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Limoges, the Pallas Institute for Art Historical and Literature Studies of the University of Leiden, the GRIT (Groupe des Recherche sur l’Image et le Texte) of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, and the Department for Culture of the Province of Pescara. The project started on 24 November 2008 and will be completed on 24 May 2010. If you have any suggestions regarding the newsletter or anything else relating to the project, please contact [email protected]. With best wishes,

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1) Call for a special issue We will be glad to dedicate a whole number of our newsletter (coming out during Fall 2009) to a series of presentations of research groups, institutions, associations, academic or fan/ collector reviews or web-sites, etc. working on European popular culture, possibly interested in joining the EPOP network. This newsletter, as well as the whole project, is firstly a networking activity: our main goal is indeed to enlarge the number of subjects involved in our network, in order to develop wider research projects on the history of European popular culture after the end of the first phase of EPOP. If you are interested in participating to this special issue please send us a short presentation, including a description of your interests and activities, your contacts, and your ideas about a European coordination of scholars, fans and collectors on the History of our popular culture.


2) What’s a virtual museum? As announced in some of our recent EPOP newsletters, one of this project’s main productions will be a “virtual museum”. This statement, in itself, raises the questions: What is a virtual museum? How does it differ from a traditional museum? And, last but not least, what will it look like?

The project Obviously, a virtual museum is a place, namely, a website where works of art can be seen. When compared to a traditional museum its flaw is self-evident: a virtual museum can not provide “real” images only virtual ones. However, in regards to popular culture this is not a problem, for, as Walter Benjamin acknowledged in his famous essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, a work that is mass reproduced

has no “aura” whatsoever. (Well, modern day collectors might have one or two things to say about that…) Another advantage attributed to the traditional museum resides in its promise of new discoveries: a visitor may roam into different rooms and discover pieces of art he or she wasn’t expecting to see. This is why our virtual museum will have a spatial structure. The visitor will be able to wander from room to room in response to his or her own curiosity and select items according to his or her interest. At the end of the day, a well conceived web museum can provide the same

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services as a traditional one. Moreover, it may be accessed from anywhere on the planet. What is more, a virtual museum can offer a visitor the free assistance of a highly qualified guide. In our museum each item, or group of items, will be presented alongside a short and straightforward commentary. In these commentaries hypertext links will connect words and phrases to other sections of the museum. This possibility will allow the visitor to create his own path through the museum reg ardless of its original str ucture. Furthermore, the museum will be connected to our database which means (despite the fact

that the latter won’t be directly available) visitors will be able to observe, and read, the development of our work as it evolves from day to day. Ultimately, a virtual museum, according to EPOP, is a museum that freely offers everything found in a traditional museum. It can be accessed from anywhere and provides a visitor with commentaries and constantly evolving data. For these reasons, our museum will aim to attract a wide range of people, from scholars and fans to students looking for information.

The adventurer room The very first room that we have started to work on is called “the adventurer”. One reason we chose this category is because it has been an adventure to assemble the contents from four different countries, and even more universities, into one room. Furthermore, just as Fantômas, one of the most famous heroes (or anti-heroes) of international popular culture, was a perfect guinea pig for the database tests, “the adventurer” is a common character in popular culture; a character that the whole EPOP team could begin working on. It is important to mention that though the “adventurer” can not be considered a rational or scientific classification of character, it is extremely important to us that the entries included in the museum (i.e. the “rooms”) be meaningful for the public. This is a paradox of course because while it may be difficult for a scholar to precisely define “the adventurer”

this category is self-evident to much of the public, such as the students and the fans, to which the project is aimed. Moreover, this classification does not mean that we should

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not specify, within the museum, that such a definition is merely a practical solution to the broader and more complex problem of typology. For this reason we have decided to add the subtitle “exoticism and colonial imagery” to the room as an indication of other interpretations for the character of the “adventurer”.

This first thematic entry will be introduced with a short presentational text and a few general images. In addition we have decided to include other classifications of the “adventurer”, namely, the pirate, the swashbuckler, the reporter, the aviator and the sportsman.

The virtual museum will offer hundreds of images of books, illustrations, movies and more. Many of these images are rare and thus difficult to acquire. Each representation will be accompanied by a concise explanation and additional references which will permit further investigation and exploration.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, popular culture delivered an incommensurable number of productions of varying quality and success. These productions have shaped our imaginations, our ideologies and the arts. EPOP aims to give the public access to this important part of our identity and our past.

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3) The Leeds Popular Cultures Research Network The PCRN is an international gathering of academic staff, postgraduates and cultural practitioners who have teaching, research and creative interests in popular culture in all its aspects. It is hosted by the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Leeds. A pluralistic approach is taken to the term popular culture, so perhaps it might be more accurate to speak of ‘popular cultures.’ The truly interdisciplinary nature of the network means that members have interests in a variety of areas that go well beyond modern languages, for example: English, Music, Communications Studies, Film and Media Studies, Philosophy, Sociology,Design, to name but a few. Given this interdisciplinary nature, the PCRN has close links with a number of other, affiliated research centres at Leeds, including the Centre for World Cinemas, the Cultural and Media Industries Research Centre (CuMIRC), and the Centre for the Study of the World‘s Popular Musics. Since 2002, the PCRN has held a series of one-day conferences as well as regular workshops at Leeds, the most recent of these being the June 2009 series (1) Policy and the Popular, (2) Poor text / rich context? Approaches to popular film and television, and (3) New Wave, New Views: Re-visiting the post-punk moment. Recently, several events have been organised in collaboration with the major French Popular Cultures research group based at the University of Limoges, the Centre de Recherches

sur les Littératures Populaires et les Cultures Médiatiques. Some broad thematic threads which recur under the umbrella of the network’s interests are: - the national and the transnational - gender - the global, local and glocal - high, popular and mass. - cybercultures, cyberspace and cyberlaw - identity, identities and ethnicities - place and space - cultural policy and the creative industries - architecture and the city The PCRN has grown rapidly, with over ninety members currently, and is truly international in nature. The PCRN and French Studies The French Department at Leeds groups a significant part of its research within the Centre for French and Francophone Cultural Studies, of which one major strand is the study of popular culture. David Looseley (whose work is on French popular music and cultural policy), Diana Holmes (popular literature esp. women’s writing/reading and cinema) and David Platten (popular literature esp. crime

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and cinema) are currently collaborating on a book project:

Storytelling in Popular Fictions at Leeds in April 2010.

Constructing the Popular in Contemporary French Culture (Manchester University Press).

Platten and Holmes have also re-submitted a bid for a major AHRC Research Grant, for a project on the popular fiction of 1950s and 60s France: Reading for Pleasure: Elite and Popular Fiction in France 1950-74.

The are also engaged in collaborative research projects on popular fiction with the Limogesbased CRLPCM: - the visit to Leeds in March 2009 by Jacques Migozzi and Loïc Artiaga, to speak at and participate in two seminar/workshops: Stor ytelling: le prêt-à-penser et le plaisir romanesque’(18.03.09) and Generic Pleasures: rethinking genre in popular fiction (20.03.09) – these will now form the basis of Special Issue of a scholarly journal - the return visit of Holmes and Platten to Limoges in early October 2009 - the joint hosting of an international conference Finding the Plot- On the Importance of

For further information see: h t t p : / / w w w. l e e d s . a c . u k / s m l c / Popularculturesresearchgroup.htm http:// w w w. l e e d s . a c . u k / f r e n c h / s t a f f / david_looseley.htm http://www.leeds.ac.uk/french/staff/ diana_holmes.htm http://www.leeds.ac.uk/french/staff/ david_platten.htm

3) News on popular culture Imagery exhibition in Belgium The Louvain-la-Neuve’s Museum, in Belgium, is presenting, until September 26, an exhibition of 19th century prints from Lorraine (France). Best known as images d’Epinal, these popular illustrations can be seen as an early form of comic: they mix text and image and were directed towards a large audience. Professor Jean-Louis Tilleuil, director of the GRIT, an EPOP research group, has provided commentaries for this exhibition. They have been published by the museum and can be purchased on site. Les images d’Épinal. Une savoureuse préhistoire

de la Bande dessinée (Épinal images. A tasty prehistory of comics.) Musée de Louvain-laNeuve (Belgique). More information can be found at: http:// w w w. m u s e . u c l . a c . b e / p u b / expo_EPINAL.php

A special number of Louvain’s review In the frame of the year of the comics in Belgium, Louvain’s university eponymous review is setting a special issue devoted to comics. With the recent opening of Hergé’s museum in Louvain-

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la-Neuve (june 2009), comic books made a remarkable entry in the university world, that is celebrated by the publication of articles devoted to Hergé’s works and reception, by specialists such as Jan Baetens, Jean-Louis Tilleuil and JeanLouis Dufays. As soon as it will be published, this special issue will be fully downloadable here : http://www.uclouvain.be/revuelouvain.html

Rocambole no. 47: ErckmannChatrian Eté 2009, vol. broché 14x20, 176 pages, 14.00 € Emile Erckmann et Alexandre Chatrian font partie de ces auteurs qui produisent ensemble une œuvre commune, une œuvre qui s’est placée en partie sous l’étiquette «  populaire  » en regroupant, en 1867 chez l’éditeur Hetzel, des textes sous le titre Contes et romans populaires. Noëlle Benhamou qui travaille sur l’œuvre d’Erckmann-Chatrian depuis plusieurs années et lui a déjà consacré plusieurs articles — dont un sur «  Riou, illustrateur d’Erckmann-Chatrian  », dans le n°41 du Rocambole, coordonne ce dossier. Sans chercher à être un tour d’horizon complet de cette œuvre, ce dossier s’arrête sur quelques aspects importants dont la dimension fantastique, les personnages féminins, l’art de la nouvelle. S’y ajoutent des éclairages sur l’accueil d’Erckmann-Chatrian par la critique russe, sur les caricatures qui les visent et sur les adaptations de leurs oeuvres à la télévision française. Le Rocambole espère ainsi faire mieux

connaître ce romancier réaliste et populaire, parfois étiqueté comme régionaliste ou écrivain pour la jeunesse. Encore un auteur à redécouvrir ! More information can be found at: http:// www.lerocambole.com/

“ C e n e re n t o l a e i l S i g n o r Bonaventura” at the Venice Film Festival At the 66th Venice International Film Festival, a restored copy of this rare movie based on the famous Italian comics “Il Signor Bonaventura” was screened on September 2, in the frame of the retrospective section dedicated to the “forgotten” films of Italian cinema. The restoration was curated by Sergio Toffetti for the National Film Library of Rome.

Cenerentola e il Signor Bonaventura (1941) by Sergio Tofano (Italy, b&w, 72') cast: Paolo Stoppa, Silvana Jachino, Roberto Villa, Sergio Tofano

European Imagery Collection at the University of Texas ARTstor is collaborating with the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin to share more than 700 images of European prints in the Digital Library. These images depict works in the Ransom Center's European popular imager y collection, which consists of woodcuts, engravings, etchings, and mezzotints from the 16th through 18th centuries. The prints

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Colloque international “SanAntonio et la culture française” 8, 19 et 20 mars 2010 Université Paris-Sorbonne Direction Scientifique: Françoise RullierTheuret

document popular culture throughout Europe, covering a variety of subject matter, including: political and religious satire, social allegory, science and technology, advertising, erotica, Dance of Death imagery, and historical events. The European popular imagery collection is one of several major collections of art housed at the Ransom Center, which include over 65,000 drawings, paintings, sculpture, and prints from the Americas, Europe, and Asia, spanning the 15th through the 20th centuries. More information can be found at: http:// www.artstor.org/what-is-artstor/w-html/ col-ransom-utaustin.shtml

2010 marquera le dixième anniversaire de la mort de F. Dard, cette date signe à la fois une commémoration et, par la mise à distance qu’elle suppose, devrait favoriser une vision d’ensemble par rapport à l’« objet d’étude ». (…) On voudrait dans ce colloque réunir les réflexions d’universitaires amateurs de San-Antonio et les compétences de véritables érudits du roman populaire. De ces regards superposés devrait naître un débat peut-être contradictoire et une réflexion collective qui permettrait une meilleure connaissance de l’œuvre. Le seul colloque qui se soit tenu sur San-Antonio en 1965 (Robert Escarpit) avait permis à F. Dard de se faire connaître sous son pseudonyme et, finalement, si on avait parlé de son écriture, on avait surtout parlé de l’homme. Depuis ce colloque, 35 ans de production régulière ont passé, 117 romans ont été écrits et 6 hors-séries. Le projet 2010 voudrait mettre au premier plan la réflexion sur le texte. La problématique proposée pour fédérer les différentes approches, comme l’indique le titre, vise à interroger le roman populaire dans le rapport qu’il entretient avec la culture dans laquelle il apparaît. On suivra trois pistes de recherche :

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a) Comment un auteur de paralittérature devient un objet culturel 1 - Quels enjeux autour d’un fonds documentaire public consacré à SanAntonio ? (Luc Savoyat, médiateur culturel à Saint-Chef, ville natale de F. Dard) 2 - San-Antonio et la presse (titre à préciser) (Dominique Jeannerod, M.C Queen’s University de Belfast) 3 - Lectures féminines (Gérard Reymond, Société des Amis de San-Antonio) 4 - Les corrections et ajustements successifs de l’éditeur d’une édition à l’autre (Serge Amore, Société des amis de San-Antonio)5 La naissance du personnage de San-Antonio entre tradition et nouveauté (Daniel Compère, MC Université Paris 3) 6 - San-Antonio et l’édition (Albert Benloulou, éditeur et agent de Frédéric Dard) b) Comment F. Dard illustre une certaine tradition culturelle française 7 - «  L’émasculée contraception  » ou le calembour absolu. (Pierre Cahné, professeur, Université Paris-Sorbonne) 8 - Le texte comique est-il traduisible  ? du français à l’espagnol (titre à préciser) (Pauline Largeteau, doctorante, Université de Poitiers) 9 - Du français à l’anglais (François Gallix, professeur émérite, Université de ParisSorbonne) 10 - La tradition culinaire chez San-Antonio (Blandine Vié, journaliste, Société des amis de San-Antonio). 11 - Catalogues obscènes et démesure(s) rabelaisienne(s) chez San-Antonio (titre à

préciser) (Xavier-Laurent Salvador, M.C. Université de Paris 13) 12 - Distinguer paillardise et pornographie (titre à préciser). (Dominique Maingueneau, professeur, Université de Paris XII) 13 - Les mots doux (Dominique Lagorgette, M.C. Université de Savoie) 14 - Bérurier, le comparse de la première heure (Violaine Géraud, professeur, Université de Lyon 3) 15 - Parodie et bonnes manières  : Le Standinge (Florence Leca-Mercier, M.C. Université Paris-Sorbonne) 16 – San-Antonio et la forme (Richard Zrehen, philosophe) 17 – San-Antonio et l’enfant (Denis Pernot, professeur, Université d’Orléans) c) Comment San-Antonio se positionne face à la culture 18 - San-Antonio, un vrai faux-populaire pour lecteur averti (Jacques Migozzi, professeur, Université de Limoges). 19 - Chapitres : rythme et lectorat populaire (Pierre Grand-Dewyse, auteur de Moi, vous me connaissez, ed. Rive droite, 1999, 750 pages) 20 – Le roi du français populaire malgré lui (Johannes Westenfelder, Université de Mainz) 21 – « Les pattes de mouches sodomisées » Image de la littérature chez San-Antonio, attirance et transgression (Raymond Milési, Société des amis de San-Antonio, auteur de San-Antonio, premier flic de France, DLM ed. Périlla-la-Rivière, 1996, 128 pages) 22 - Peut-on distinguer San-Antonio et F. Dard, sous le «  je  » qui les réunit  ? (titre à

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préciser) (Bernard Wagnon M.C. Université de Grenoble, INPG) 23 - « Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France, San-Antonio aussi  » (étude sur La Sexualité, Le Standinge et L’Histoire de France) – (Pascal Theuret) 24 - Grâces et disgrâces des personnages secondaires  : comment l’idéologie s’inscrit dans la distribution des actants (Françoise Rullier-Theuret, M.C. Université ParisSorbonne) 25 - Le commissaire San-Antonio : évolution d’une image en 50 ans (titre à préciser) (Maxime Gillio, secrétaire de la société des amis de San-Antonio)

26 - San-Antonio face aux autorités (Thierry Gautier, Société des amis de San-Antonio, rédacteur en chef du Monde de San-Antonio) 27 - Harmonie culturelle et hommage à la nation française (Pier re Verdaguer, University of Maryland) Contact : Françoise Rullier-Theuret, UFR de langue française; [email protected]

4) Call for Papers Studies in Comics Papers are invited for Studies in Comics, a new international and interdisciplinary academic journal that aims to describe the nature of comics, to identify the medium as a distinct art form, and to address its formal properties. The inaugural edition will launch our investigations with a selection of worldclass academic articles that explore the formal properties of comics, advancing their own theory of comics or responding to an established theoretical model. We also w e l c o m e r e v i e w s o f n e w c o m i c s, scholarship, criticism and exhibitions, as well as unpublished creative work.   We are now inviting the following submissions: Articles of 4,000-8,000 words from any discipline. These should have a strong critical focus and seek to apply hitherto

unexplored theoretical approaches to the medium of comics or respond to published theories about the medium’s formal properties. Possible areas include: •Comics and visual language in the context of communications theory • The grammar of comics • Narrative structure • The relationship between panel, page, and the multiframe • Composition and panel transitions • The treatment of time and space Responses to published theorists such as Scott McCloud, Will Eisner, Thierry Groensteen Please send all submissions to [email protected]. More information can be found at: http:// www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/viewJournal,id=168/view,page=2/

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Call for Papers: European Popular Culture and Literature (Conference) Papers are now being accepted on topics related to European popular culture and literature. All approaches and time periods are welcome. Some possible topics include, but are not limited to: • European reality TV • Parkour • Eurovision as cultural phenom • Riot Grrrl Europe • Euro-pop • European hip hop • Bande Dessinée • Transatlantic literature Scholars, teachers, professionals, and others interested in European popular culture and

literature are encouraged to participate. Graduate students are also particularly welcome with award opportunities for best graduate papers. Send a short curriculum vitae and a 250-350 word abstract or/and panel proposal to [email protected] or to the physical address below by 01 October 2009. Dr. M. Catherine Jonet, European Popular Culture and Literature Area Chair MSC 3WSP New Mexico State University P.O. Box 30001 Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001 More information can be found at: http:// call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/33718

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.

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