Bande Dessinee: Thinking Outside the Boxes

The latest installment of Yale French Studies explores the history and development of bande dessinee, Franco-Belgian comics.

This special issue of "Yale French Studies" on bande dessinee is a multifaceted reflection on its newfound academic status. It goes beyond the question, settled long ago, of its artistic legitimacy but aims to think "outside the boxes", or cases, themselves in order to explore the mutually enriching relationship between BD and the wider francophone cultural and intellectual world. Contributions thus intersect with art history, literary theory, cinema studies, postcolonialism, semiotics, and political sociology. Articles are by mainstream interdisciplinary scholars applying themselves to BD, leading authorities on bande dessinee itself, BD artists, and key figures in contemporary French thought whose texts appear in English for the first time.