Project directors
- John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine
- Christopher Craig, Tohoku University
- Sara Izzo, Universität Bonn
Project Associate Members
- Olga Kopylova (Tohoku, Japan)
- Adriana Habens (Lorraine, France)
- Matthew Strecher (Sophia, Japan)
Project Partners
Project Sponsors
LUE (Lorraine Université d’Excellence) and Global Engagement Division (Tohoku University)
Description
Along with documentary manga, comics journalism, a subgenre of literary journalism that has gained influence both as a practice and an object of scientific inquiry, fuses traditional textual reportage with visual narrativity. Evoking an intimate narrative voice entices readers’ emotions while awakening them to a truth about a given topic, and graphic literary journalism and documentary manga capture that emotion through the writer’s reimagined visual recollection of a textually recorded event. Therein lies its promise, and potential for problems. Operating on multiple semiotic levels not present in the textual version alone, graphic nonfiction requires a stronger implied contract to journalistic integrity because the text and the image can be at odds with that truth’s representation. Mangix – a blend of the terms manga, comics and comix, with a nod to the ubiquitous French linguistic puns in Asterix – seeks to examine the role, assessment, and representation of memory – as much for the journalist–artist as for the eyewitness – in comics journalism and documentary manga, as well as the history of and current trends in the illustrated literary journalism of various countries, from the rise of illustrated newspapers and satirical periodicals in the 19th century to investigative and immersive comics journalism and documentary manga of the 20th and 21st centuries. One of its many goals will be to identify the strands of a transnational migration of literary journalistic techniques, visual and textual alike, from France (and the U.S. and Europe in general) to and back from Japan over the years.
Program
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Program 2024-25
- The academic year started off with some very good news. The Mangix project, "Comics/Manga Journalism: Reportage Traditions and Illustration Praxes in Graphic Literary Journalism," was granted two-year seed funding by the Univ. of Lorraine (France) and Tohoku (Japan). The project, which can be found here, will officially begin on 10 Dec. 2024 with an introductory seminar (the program to be announced later).
Click here to read more about the Mangix project.
On 10 December, John, Christopher Craig and Sara Izzo held the inaugural seminar for the Mangix project. John introduced the project publicly for the first time, and then each of them present a mini-talk on their comics/manga journalism works in progress.
In March 2025, John went to Tokyo, to meet with Matthew Strecher at Sophia University, and then to Sendai to work with Christopher Craig at Tohoku University. They both participated in a two-day workshop on Trauma and Narrative at the university's International Research Institute of Disaster Science. The first day was dedicated to narrative journalistic writing dedicated to the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011, which was the source of the deadly tsunami that hit the Iwate Prefecture where Sendai is located. Following the presentation of two reportages from foreign citizens present during the earthquake, the attendees were treated to a traditional Japanese Kamishibai, which is a form of street theatre that uses pictures to help narrate a story (and is seen as a form of manga performance). This particular kamishebai was based on the earthquake's destruction around the Fukushima nuclear reactor.
The next day, John and Chris both presented their Mangix reseach in progress. John gave the talk "Of Little Boys and 'Little Boy': Nakazawa's Hiroshima Manga as Graphic Literary Journalism." He was looking for advice on the paper's discussion on trauma and memory on manga reportage, as well as feedback on the original panels in Japanese. Christ presented his research on WWII American war comics as nonfiction journalism.
In May, John, Sara and Tobias participated in a Mangix panel at the 19th Congress of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies held at Marist College in upstate New York. The panel, "Comics Journalism and Manga: At the Crossroads of Graphic Literary Journalism," gave each the opportunity to explore their research on nonfiction manga in France, Japan, Germany, Italy and Austria.
The Congress had other panels dedicated to comics journalism. And while there, John was able to announce to everyone that IALJS 20 will be held in Nancy in May 2026, and there will certainly be a program dedicated to the Mangix project at the congress. More on that to come....
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Program 2025-26
- The academic year 2025-26 will be very busy for Mangix. Although the fall program has yet to be set, the spring term activities will be exciting. In May 2026, Nancy will be hosting the 20th Congress of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS-20), which will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of IALJS founded in Nancy back in 2006. The theme for this next congress will be "Literary Journalism & A Sense of Home."
For a long time, literary journalism was an academic refugee, calling home to any place that would welcome it. It lived, and lives still, on several different shelves of the library and the bookstore, just as it still lives in various university departments throughout the world. Longing for a home of its own, literary journalism – those who write it, those who study it – found a kindred spirit over the years in the IALJS, and, in coming home to Nancy, it bears witness to the decades of research and researchers (from those living to those we have lost) dedicated to its many forms, its many faces, its many names. Literary journalism, as a genre, was homeless for a long time, which is precisely why it empathizes so much with those who still are.
There are many ways “home” could be explored within literary journalism studies. From the works themselves to the authors who wrote them to the scholars who have studied them over the last twenty years (as a genre, as a discipline, as a hermeneutic). Potential papers and panels can inquire: What has IALJS achieved these past two decades? What still remains to be done? What are the future prospects for literary journalism research and IALJS in a world growing openly hostile to refugees and the homeless? A sense of “home” can thus be interpreted in many different ways and from many various perspectives.
The International Association for Literary Journalism Studies is a multi-disciplinary learned society whose essential purpose is the encouragement and improvement of scholarly research and education in Literary Journalism. As an association in a relatively recently defined field of academic study, it is our agreed intent to be both explicitly inclusive and warmly supportive of a variety of scholarly approaches.
Following just on the heals of this congress will be the 4th Transnational Literary Journalism Summer School, again to be held in Nancy from 1 - 5 June 2026. The theme for this fourth Ecole d'été will be linked to the Mangix project, "Comics Journalism, Documentary Manga, BD Reportage: Graphic Literary Journalism around the World."
More on this Ecole d'été in the months ahead.