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Last week, I received comments from a reader of my blog regarding my description of the central question of my PhD research as:
How can we, from the perspective of the present, make post-Mao lianhuanhua [comic books] intelligible?
[thread]
![Last week, I received comments from a reader of my blog regarding my description of the central question of my PhD research as:How can we, from the perspective of the present, make post-Mao lianhuanhua [comic books] intelligible?[thread]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkiaHtrWMAAzt1D.png "Last week, I received comments from a reader of my blog regarding my description of the central question of my PhD research as:How can we, from the perspective of the present, make post-Mao lianhuanhua [comic books] intelligible?[thread]")
How can we, from the perspective of the present, make post-Mao lianhuanhua [comic books] intelligible?
[thread]
The reader warned that this position could be interpreted as an expression of “presentism.” In light of this, I thought I might share some of my thoughts on this topic in the form of a short essay:
https://www.nickstember.com/presentism-and-comics-studies/
/1">https://www.nickstember.com/presentis...
https://www.nickstember.com/presentism-and-comics-studies/
/1">https://www.nickstember.com/presentis...
In the post, I provide my understanding of the concept of presentism, and how I see it relating to comics studies in China, and elsewhere as well. The post isn’t too long, but I thought I would also provide a tldr here to summarize my key points.
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As I understand it, presentism refers to the concern that when writing about the past, we may end being unduly influenced by the values and interests of our own historical moment.
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This is problem because as historians we are expected to not only accurately record historical events; but we are also asked to interpret the motivations of the historical actors responsible for those events.
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Getting the first part right is relatively straightforward (pre-Covid, at least): go to the archives, and use reputable primary sources to piece together an objective narrative that either agrees or disagrees with what others have said about the events in question.
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(Hayden White might disagree about whether any narrative can truly be said to be ‘objective’, but that’s a topic for whole other essay.)
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The second part, where we apply our subjective interpretations of why certain people acted the way they did, is usually where concerns about presentism come in.
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As I argue in my essay, presentism is foundational to comics studies, because the term “comics,” as we use it now, emerged gradually. Originally “comics” referred to humorous publications, only later coming to refer to the “picture stories” included within.
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So even when we can trace a direct line of genealogical descent from “picture story” to “comic strip,” it is unavoidably anachronistic to discuss the emergence of “comic strips” avant la lettre.
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This hasn’t stopped people from doing it, though. Just last week, the German comics scholar Dirk Vanderbeke made his case for comics-before-comics over at The Comics Journal:
http://www.tcj.com/before-they-were-funnies-pictures-and-stories-in-the-middle-ages-and-early-modern-times/
/10">https://www.tcj.com/before-th...
http://www.tcj.com/before-they-were-funnies-pictures-and-stories-in-the-middle-ages-and-early-modern-times/
/10">https://www.tcj.com/before-th...
In discussing one of my favorite examples by Umberto Eco, who describes a Gothic cathedral as a “great book in stone […] the mystic comic strip that must narrate and explain everything…”
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…I break down some of the problems we can get into not only when we push these sorts of metaphors too far, but even when we try to compare “comics” traditions in different countries.
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From here, I turn to my own work on Chinese comics (manhua and lianhuanhua), and show that even within a single county what we mean when we say “comics” needs to be contextualized for the time period we are discussing.
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And conclude with a brief discussion of the ways that I& #39;ve come to see my own presentist outsider perspective on Chinese comics as a strength rather than a weakness.
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You can read the original write up of my research presentation @WritingChinese which inspired the reader& #39;s comments here:
https://www.nickstember.com/the-fake-foreign-devil-is-great/
/15">https://www.nickstember.com/the-fake-...
https://www.nickstember.com/the-fake-foreign-devil-is-great/
/15">https://www.nickstember.com/the-fake-...
And as always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the useful/less of "comics" as a term for research into mass produced print visual narratives outside of a ~20th century Anglophone context.
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