Steal This History: historiography, the Sixties and the comic
- Submitting institution
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University of Portsmouth
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 7149649
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
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10.1080/13642529.2016.1221936
- Title of journal
- Rethinking History
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 506
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 4
- ISSN
- 1364-2529
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month of publication
- August
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
1
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- A comic book, a graphic research paper, an experiment in image and text – ‘Steal This History’ explores the 1960s (or ‘Sixties’) as it has appeared in various historical and commemorative discourses. Thus far it is the only comic-as-research paper published in the journal Rethinking History (Taylor and Francis). It represents a unique contribution to historiographic studies and the nascent field of comics-as-research. Exploring how, as in the comic and in wider culture, meaning is formed through discourse and an awareness of changes in context and expression it does not privilege the written over the image. It interrogates the form and function of both history writing and the comic. Oliver Gruner, a historian and visual culture academic, wrote the text as a self-reflexive dialogue with historiographic theory. Netter drew the comic and developed visual ‘riffs’ based around the evolving narrative/discourse. The comic itself was effectively co-written with the images prompting shifts in the direction of the discourse and often functioning as a text itself, layering meaning and creating new iconic images to demonstrate the role of images in problematising a singular understanding of an epoch.
In comic strip form, the article provides a multi-perspective account of the Sixties that combines allusions to historical events with personal reflection, provocative imagery, symbol and metaphor. Influenced by the ideas of Hayden White, Alun Munslow, Robert A. Rosenstone and others, it explores the potential of the image as a conduit for innovative, challenging, self-conscious histories. Netter furthers this in the comic, developing a path towards a graphic philosophy of history.
This comic-strip-article aims to put historiography in practice and consciously generate meta commentary in the image and text. It manages two persuasive discourses; the role, complexities and problematics of metaphor and symbolism in history and the polysemous image and its function in historiography.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -