My postdoctoral project, funded by the F.R.S - FNRS (2023-2024) and FWO (2024-2027), looks at the international circulation and reception of European children's magazines revolving around the figure of Mickey Mouse. I focus on Italy (Topolino) and France (Journal de Mickey) because of the longevity and success of both publications to map the reception of those magazines between 1932 and 1968.
Read on here.
Comics and Graphic Novels in the Language Class in Secondary Education - Ghent Uni Societal Value Fund
From January 2025 until December 2025 I will working on this small side project, Thanks to Ghent University BOF fund for financing this project!
Since 2017 the Netherlands has a "Graphic Novels voor de Leeslijst" , a selection of "literary comics" with which Margreet de Heer hoped to inspire teachers and pupils. The pedagogical advantages of comics in language education have been promoted by scholars (Amann & Walner 2022) and teachers. Lesson plans made by teachers for teachers focus on making comics or on approaching the literary aspects of graphic novels (Klascement). Still, comics appear in a plethora of formats and materials (zines, webcomics) and reach their diverse publics through diverse distribution channels. To help language teachers with a background in literary and linguistic studies, this project develops workshops and a webinar on comics as a medium, with attention for multimodality, publicationformat and implied audience. Teachers can follow the workshop live or do the digital webinar on this website and on comics.ugent.be. The corpus will provide them with a multilingual corpus (Dutch, French, German, English, Spanish).
Enroll for my workshops: Strips en beeldromans in de taalles | Humanities Academie
Movable Sections in the Children's Periodicals from the Alain Van Passen Collection at Ghent University
My first, one-year postdoc as part of Maaheen Ahmed's ERC COMICS at Ghent University, revolved around the French-language children's periodicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. I looked into those sections of the periodicals that helped children grow up and make life/career choices.
Read on here.