When examining the Greek graphic novels of the past decade, one will be quick to notice that the great majority of them look for their narratives in the Greek literary canon on the one hand and the watershed moments of the Greek national history on the other. At the same time, there is cross-fertilization between these two types of narratives: the novels that are adapted into comics form are usually regarded as particularly reflective of historical periods that they narrate while the historical narratives often blur the boundaries between what is real and what is fictional by invoking visual metaphors that come from the genre of fantasy. The first part of this lecture will draw on examples from Greek graphic novels in order to discern voices, genres and cultural tendencies that come into view while narrating history in present-day Greece. The second part of the lecture will then move from history into the present and from comics-in-book form to alternative formats in order to examine cases of comics activism. Juxtaposing these two perspectives, the lecture will propose comics as a way of thinking that can open alternative visions onto contemporary Greece.

About the speaker: Kristina Gedgaudaitė is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam and the author of Memories of Asia Minor in Contemporary Greek Culture: An Itinerary (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Kristina’s research interests lie in the fields of contemporary culture across media, cultural memory, migration, comics and graphic novels. Her current project examines Greek comics and graphic novels as a site of artistic innovation and social critique.

Respondent: Rik Spanjers (Assistant Professor in Television and Cross-Media Culture, University of Amsterdam)

Chair: Maria Boletsi (Endowed Professor of Modern Greek Studies (Marilena Laskaridis Chair), University of Amsterdam & Associate Professor in Film Literary Studies, Leiden University)

Note: This lecture is part of the project ReCOLLECTED, funded through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship (Project no. 101067507).
Disclaimer. Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Supported by: The Humanities Faculty, the Department of Modern Greek Language and Culture of the University of Amsterdam, the Dutch Society for Modern Greek Studies (NGNS), the ASCA group “Crisis, Crtique, and Futurity” and Amsterdam Comics Network