What can a drawing do that a photograph cannot? In an era of collapsing newsrooms and widespread distrust of the press, comics journalism has emerged as a form of reporting that slows the reader down, grants access to spaces traditional journalists cannot enter, and protects the anonymity of those whose stories most need telling. In this episode, Aubrey Gabel, assistant professor of French at Columbia and Fellow of the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, maps the landscape of French bande dessinée as a space for serious reportage.
She traces the medium's political genealogy, examines how the illustrator's hand enriches the notion of objectivity, and asks what it means that, in France, one in four books sold is a comic.
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Host: Marie Doezema
Production: Marie Doezema, Tessa Overvoorde, and Anthony Valette
Editing: Theo Albaric
Music: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha He
With thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in Paris
The Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.
Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.
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