Robert Aman | Linköping University (original) (raw)

Journal Articles by Robert Aman

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2023

This article situates Journal de Spirou and its flagship title in the context of Belgium's imperi... more This article situates Journal de Spirou and its flagship title in the context of Belgium's imperial history. It examines pro-empire messages in the magazine from the inaugural issue in 1938 up to the independence of the Congo in 1960. The magazine is one of Europe's most successful, and the bellboy whose name is on the cover has evolved into a true icon of Franco-Belgian comics. Less known is the role Spirou played in promoting the colonial idea to its readers during the decades coinciding with Belgium's overseas rule. In contrast to rival Tintin, who only went to the colony once, the Congo becomes Spirou's most frequent itinerary. Throughout Belgium's colonial period, Spirou makes use of dehumanising depictions of black Africans; depictions that affirm a message of white supremacy embedded in the storylines. In short, both the famous bellboy and the magazine carrying his name position themselves as significant actors in the field of bande dessinée in terms of providing justifications for colonialism.

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2022

The eponymous protagonist of Tumac, a comic book published monthly in Sweden between 1978 and 198... more The eponymous protagonist of Tumac, a comic book published monthly in Sweden between 1978 and 1980, is a young indigenous boy who in contemporary times becomes emperor of a hidden Inca empire. After attempting to create a society where all social hierarchies have ceased to exist, Tumac leaves this hidden location in the jungle to help bring about a revolution in Latin America. This essay argues that Tumac is a prime example of what can be classified in broad terms as a wave of international solidarity in Sweden infused with New Left politics. During this period, colourblindness was elevated to a governing norm and antiracist vision, symbolised here by an indigenous hero fighting for social justice in a part of the world that increasingly took centre stage in the national political debate. In short, Tumac is a leading example of how Sweden wanted to be seen and saw others.

Inks, 2018

This essay argues that although The Phantom is an American comic about a superhero of British her... more This essay argues that although The Phantom is an American comic about a superhero of British heritage set in a fictional African country filled with colonial nostalgia, it is also, within Sweden, a leading example of antiracist politics and anti-apartheid protest literature. Since 1972 the Swedish-based scriptwriters of "Team Fantomen" have regularly supplied officially licensed adventures to The Phantom comics around the world. This essay suggests that this shift in the scripts' geographical origin also altered the politics of the comic: the Swedish creators added social commentary and political thought to the storylines, as the Phantom was redefined in line with New Left ideology. Southern Africa, with societies affected by institutionalized racism, is inscribed into the plots, which function to inform the reader about the righteousness and validity of the dominant Swedish foreign-policy doctrine of the time. This essay contends that The Phantom played an important part in shaping Swedish public discourse on apartheid, while also helping to establish Sweden as a leading international antiracist voice.

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2018

The Phantom, an American comic about a superhero of British heritage set in a fictional African c... more The Phantom, an American comic about a superhero of British heritage set in a fictional African country, is held in high esteem elsewhere, regarded as a national institution in Australia, New Zealand and much of Scandinavia. Since the early 1960s, officially licensed scripts have been produced by the Swedish-based scriptwriters of ‘Team Fantomen’ who today remain the major suppliers of adventures to the Phantom comics around the world. This essay suggests that this shift in the scripts’ geographical origin also altered the politics of the comic: in the hands of Team Fantomen, the masked hero is instilled with political doctrines reflected in Swedish foreign policy during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This ideological shift means that the masked hero moves away from the role of colonialist fantasy prevalent in the American scripts to become a supporter of decolonisation, social justice and equality. The Phantom becomes an avatar of democratic socialist ideology, the episodes offering a direct commentary on Sweden’s perception of its own role in the world as a leading proponent of international solidarity.

Third Text, 2016

The award-winning Johan Vilde comic series deals with what has been referred to as a concealed pa... more The award-winning Johan Vilde comic series deals with what has been referred to as a concealed part of Swedish history – namely Sweden's involvement in the slave trade during the seventeenth century. The protagonist is a cabin boy on a Swedish merchant ship who is forced to escape after being accused of mutiny. After jumping ship, he floats ashore in Cabo Corso – located in modern-day Ghana – where he is eventually adopted by a local clan and grows up in an African kingdom. From there, he will go on to witness the harshness and brutality of the slave trade with his own eyes. Comprising four albums published between 1977 and 1982, the comic aligns itself with, and is a prime popular cultural example of, what can be classified in broad terms as a wave of international solidarity movements in Sweden. What this article discusses is how the anti-colonial and anti-capitalist underpinnings of the Johan Vilde series rekindle a much older Romanticist position. This article will argue that this well-intended ethically dimension of attempting to subvert the imperially established border between civilisation and where the wild things roam also relies on a position produced by colonial discourse.

If the production of knowledge in Latin America has long been subject to imperial designs and dis... more If the production of knowledge in Latin America has long been subject to imperial designs and disseminated through educational systems, recent interventions —from liberation theology, popular education, participatory action research, alternative communication and critical literacy to postcolonial critique and decolonial options—have sought to shift the geography of reason. The central question to be addressed is how, in times of historical ruptures, political reconstructions and epistemic formations, the production of paradigms rooted in ‘other’ logics, cosmologies and realities may renegotiate and redefine concepts of education, learning and knowledge.
Latin America has changed face. After the long years of military dictatorships, civil wars and economic instability, diverse academic commentators now stress that the region has become the foremost site in the world of counter-hegemonic processes. According to these scholars, such local acts of resistance are loaded with the potential for radically challenging the existing economic and financial order controlled by the ‘West’ (cf. Escobar, 2010; Guardiola-Rivera, 2010). In Latin America, exposure to some of the harshest and most unjust consequences of the global economy dates back as long ago as to when the region was first included in European maps and spans centuries: from the emergence of a new global division of commerce—from merchandise to human cargo—that saw both Latin America and Africa stripped of memories, exuberance and manpower to the neoliberal recipes imposed on the region up until the end of the twentieth century by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Aman, 2015).
Over the last decades, however, several Latin American communities, in different parts of the region, have countered this movement by forming some of the most dynamic and organized forms of resistance: from the landless movements in Brazil to the Zapatistas in the Chiapas region of Mexico, from the indigenous social movements in Bolivia to Venezuela’s Chavistas, to mention but a few. At the same time, diverse Latin American countries have given birth to and nurtured a truly endogenous educational approach which has become known as popular education. In many cases, the movements of resistance have developed their own particular brand of popular education as an expression of counter-hegemonic resilience, which has also in some cases been accompanied by expressions of the liberation theology movement engendered by the Catholic Church.
Not least, these counter-hegemonic events have generated a new vocabulary. ‘Plurinationality’, ‘interculturality’, ‘direct and substantive democracy’, or even socialismo del siglo XXI (‘socialism of the twenty-first century’) and revolucion ciudadana (‘citizen revolution’) are only a few of the many concepts that seek to pro- vide a name to the ongoing events towards post-liberal societies. Subsequently, such notions have also been assimilated by and interacted with educational discourses producing their own specific terminology in which terms such as dialogue, conscientization or critical awareness, praxis, participation, class mediation, empowerment, emancipatory or transformative education are central. In some cases, as for example Nicaragua in the 1980s, such concepts and practices found their way into educational policies on distinct national levels. Perhaps the most evident current example is that of Bolivia where Evo Morales, when elected the nation’s first indigenous president in 2005, went so far as to declare the need to ‘decolonize education’; that is, to emancipate the educational system from western influences. There is also an ongoing and highly polemical discus- sion in Brazil concerning the approval of a national policy of popular education seen as a method of government articulated with a national policy of social participation (Ireland, 2014).
In mentioning the aforesaid political reforms, a caveat is needed before proceeding. This special issue is not limited to Latin American communities that have formulated radical, local and sustainable alternatives to the global economy with their apparent effects on and interaction with formal and non-formal edu- cation. Nor are there any ambitions to make any representational claims for the region in terms of content, focus or scholarship. Rather, as the title suggests, our ambition is to map and present a slice of the various and broad-reaching ways of understanding, approaching and perceiving education within the region. Consequently, the scope of this special issue is on the variety of theorizations, discussions and developments as related to the praxis of education and its scholarship in contemporary Latin America. In other words, if there are any common denominators—the red threads that link the different articles to each other— then we would indicate three. The locus of enunciation; that is, the region from where or about which the authors write. What can be termed popular or in some cases non-formal or counter hegemonic education and the broad concept of learning. The focus of most popular or counter-hegemonic education tends to be on learning rather than teaching.

This paper explores the ways in which boundaries of estrangement are produced in the academic lit... more This paper explores the ways in which boundaries of estrangement are produced in the academic literature assigned for courses on interculturality. As the existence of interculturality is dependent on the ascription of content to culture – since the notion, by definition, always involves more than one singular culture – this essay seeks to provide an answer to the question of what this literature, implicitly or otherwise, defines in terms of sameness vis-à-vis otherness, and thereby to chart the conditions for becoming intercultural. This question is especially important because the self in interculturality has to be, in principle, generalizable: it should signify a position available for occupation by anybody with proper training in this approach. Starting from the assumption that different experiences, languages and identities, already intersect and are indeed already intercultural before being subjected to study under the auspices of ‘interculturality’ as an educational topic, the essay goes on to problematize the way in which interculturality tends to construe sameness and difference along national lines and does little to cater for multiple, as opposed to national, or other unified, identities.

In the Name of Interculturality: On Colonial Legacies in Intercultural Education, 2014

This paper scrutinises the ways in which students who have completed a university course on inter... more This paper scrutinises the ways in which students who have completed a university course on interculturality distinguish between sameness and otherness in attempts to integrate, relate to and build a bridge to those deemed culturally different. It makes use of interviews to analyse the factors that shape the interpretation of otherness and difference in the students’ definitions of interculturality, as well as their statements about the relationships between us and them, and descriptions of instances of learning and teaching that have taken place between parties in different parts of the world. Theoretically, the paper is based on a postcolonial framework, highlighting the continuing influence of colonialism and Eurocentric ways of reasoning inside as well as outside the classroom in today’s society. One of the main conclusions of the paper is that in the process of transferring
knowledge, there is a risk that the history of modern Europe will be sanctioned as the historical trajectory for the rest of the world to follow, with the accompanying supposition that this can only be
made possible by extending a helping hand to the Other.

Cultural Studies, Mar 25, 2014

Interculturality is a notion that has come to dominate the debate on cultural diversity among sup... more Interculturality is a notion that has come to dominate the debate on cultural diversity among supranational bodies such as the European Union and UNESCO in recent years. The EU goes so far as to identify interculturality as a key cultural and linguistic characteristic of a union which, it argues, acts as an inspiration to other parts of the world. At the same time, the very notion of interculturality is a core component of indigenous movements in the Andean region of Latin America in their struggles for decolonization. Every bit as contingent as any other concept, it is apparent that several translations of interculturality are simultaneously in play. Through interviews with students and teachers in a course on interculturality run by indigenous alliances, my aim in this essay is to study how the notion is translated in the socio-political context of the Andes. With reference points drawn from the works of Walter Mignolo and the concept of delinking, I will engage in a discussion about the potential for interculturality to break out of the prison-house of colonial vocabulary – modernization, progress, salvation – that lingers on in official memory. Engagement in such an interchange of experiences, memories and significations provides not only recognition of other forms of subjectivity, knowledge systems and visions of the future but also a possible contribution to an understanding of how any attempt to invoke a universal reach for interculturality, as in the case of the EU and UNESCO, risks echoing the imperial order that the notion in another context attempts to overcome.

El presente artículo se centra en la problematización de reclamación de la Unión Europea, según l... more El presente artículo se centra en la problematización de reclamación de la Unión Europea, según la cual, el diálogo intercultural constituye un método para hablar a través de las fronteras culturales, basadas en la empatía mutua y no la dominación. Más precisamente, el objetivo es analizar qué se está construyendo como contraparte del diálogo intercultural a través del discurso producido por la Unión Europea. Para responder a la pregunta, los documentos de la política europea sobre el diálogo intercultural se analizan sobre la base de una perspectiva poscolonial. Como una interpretación, la Unión Europea se apropia de los símbolos históricos y figuras del pensamiento colonial para autorizar y legitimar sus objetivos actuales. En el ámbito de la Unión Europea, los europeos son retratados como una existencia a priori histórica, mientras que los excluidos de este concepto son evocados para demostrar su diferencia en comparación con el europeo. Sin embargo, los resultados muestran que los sujetos no considerados como europeos sirven como marcadores de la actual multiculturalidad del espacio europeo. Por lo tanto, el diálogo intercultural parece consolidar las diferencias entre europeo y Otro -el "nosotros" y el "ellos" en el diálogo-y no, como en línea con su objetivo, acercar a sujetos entre sí.

Academic courses on interculturality have become a rapidly growing discipline in the West, where ... more Academic courses on interculturality have become a rapidly growing discipline in the West, where supranational bodies such as the European Union and UNESCO promote intercultural education as a path towards improved global cultural relations. Through interviews with students who completed a university course on interculturality, this essay investigates the tenets of interculturality and problematises whether this discourse merely reproduces a classificatory logic embedded in modernity that insists on differences among cultures. The argument put forward is that in the analysed context, interculturality tends to reproduce the very colonial ideas that it seeks to oppose. In doing so, interculturality reinforces the collective ‘we’ as the location of modernity by deciding who is culturally different and who is in a position that must be bridged to the mainstream by engaging in intercultural dialogue.

Confero | Vol. 1 | no. 1 | 2013 | pp. 5 - 18 | doi: 10.3384/confero.2001 - 4562.13v1i15

Editorial text for Confero. In this first number of the new journal Confero we engage with que... more Editorial text for Confero.

In this first number of the new journal Confero we engage with questions regarding the conditions for academic knowledge production. We argue, following the lead of Larsson (2008) that a virtual ‘economy of publications and citations’ (EPC) is emerging, that calculations of publications and citations are used more and more to allocate resources (both financial and merit/prestige). In this editorial we introduce the first number of Confero, and problematize the current obsession with measurements and standardized forms of quality, such as impact-factors, league tables and ISI-rankings. We also embark on a discussion on how the emergence of an economy of publications and citations might transform academic practice.

The present essay focuses on problematizing the European Union’s claim that intercultural dialogu... more The present essay focuses on problematizing the European Union’s claim that intercultural dialogue constitutes an advocated method of talking through cultural boundaries – inside as well as outside the classroom – based on mutual empathy and non-domination. More precisely, the aim is to analyze who is being constructed as counterparts of the intercultural dialogue through the discourse produced by the EU in policies on education, culture and intercultural dialogue. Within the Union, Europeans are portrayed as having an a priori historical existence, while the ones excluded from this notion are evoked to demonstrate its difference in comparison to the European one. The results show that subjects not considered as Europeans serve as markers of the multicultural present of the space. Thus, intercultural dialogue seems to consolidate differences between European and Other – the ‘We’ and ‘Them’ in the dialogue – rather than, as in line with its purpose, bringing subjects together.

Cuadernos Interculturales, 2012

El presente artículo se centra en la problematización de reclamación de la Unión Europea, según l... more El presente artículo se centra en la problematización de reclamación de la Unión Europea, según la cual, el diálogo intercultural constituye un método para hablar a través de las fronteras culturales, basadas en la empatía mutua y no la dominación. Más precisamente, el objetivo es analizar qué se está construyendo como contraparte del diálogo intercultural a través del discurso producido por la Unión Europea. Para responder a la pregunta, los documentos de la política europea sobre el diálogo intercultural se analizan sobre la base de una perspectiva postcolonial. Como una interpretación, la Unión Europea se apropia de los símbolos históricos y figuras del pensamiento colonial para autorizar y legitimar sus objetivos actuales. En el ámbito de la Unión Europea, los europeos son retratados como una existencia a priori histórica, mientras que los excluidos de este concepto son evocados para demostrar su diferencia en comparación con el europeo. Sin embargo, los resultados muestran que los sujetos no considerados como europeos sirven como marcadores de la actual multiculturalidad del espacio europeo. Por lo tanto, el diálogo intercultural parece consolidar las diferencias entre europeo y Otro - el “nosotros” y el “ellos” en el diálogo - y no, como en línea con su objetivo, acercar a sujetos entre sí.

Teré: Revista de Filosofía y Socio política de la …, Jan 1, 2009

El presente escrito compara la representación de la esclavitud de las indígenas en América Lati... more El presente escrito compara la representación de la esclavitud de las indígenas en América Latina durante la colonia en libros escolares en Suecia con sus equivalentes en Colombia. El objetivo es indagar si existen diferencias y similitudes en la reproducción del mismo ...

Cuestiones: Revista del Centro de Investigación en …, Jan 1, 2007

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the indigenous people and the culture in Latin Am... more The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the indigenous people and the culture in Latin America is represented in Swedish high school schoolbooks in comparison with their equals in Colombia. The aim is to discover whether there are any differences or similarities ...

RESUMEN El presente escrito compara la representación de los indígenas y su cultura en libros esc... more RESUMEN El presente escrito compara la representación de los indígenas y su cultura en libros escolares en Suecia con sus equivalentes en Colombia. El objetivo es indagar si existen diferencias y similitudes en la reproducción de la comunidad indígena en ambos países.

Books by Robert Aman

När Fantomen blev svensk. Vänsterns världsbild i trikå, 2022

Hur kan en amerikansk superhjälte i blå trikåer, som har anklagats för både rasism och sexism, bl... more Hur kan en amerikansk superhjälte i blå trikåer, som har anklagats för både rasism och sexism, bli en svensk nationalhjälte?

Seriefiguren Fantomen dyker upp i svensk press redan i början på 1940-talet, men det är först på 1970-talet, ett decennium när en kraftig vänstervåg sköljer över Sverige, som Fantomen på allvar blir ”svensk”. Tidningen får då ett svenskt redaktionsråd, ”Team Fantomen”, som låter Fantomen ägna sig åt allt från kolonial befrielsekamp till jämställdhet och till att öppna ett Konsum i djungeln. Och mitt i alltihop är Fantomen förstås en närvarande pappa, fattas bara.

Fantomen-gestalten förkroppsligar kort sagt ambitionen bakom svensk utrikespolitik och det faller uppenbarligen både gamla och unga läsare i smaken. Under 70-talet är det faktiskt fler som läser om hans kamp mot sociala orättvisor än som läser "Expressen". I sin bok undersöker Robert Aman – kulturskribent, serieforskare och biträdande professor i pedagogik vid Linköpings universitet – hur detta var möjligt och hur seriens dialog med det omgivande samhället mer konkret såg ut.

Hans bok låter oss möta både superhjälten i trikåer och ett Sverige i en politisk och social brytningstid.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

This book is about the Phantom in Sweden, or, more correctly, about Sweden in the Phantom. Robert... more This book is about the Phantom in Sweden, or, more correctly, about Sweden in the Phantom. Robert Aman uncovers how a peripheral American superhero – created in 1936 by Lee Falk – that has been accused of both racism and sexism has become a national concern in a country that several researchers have labelled the most antiracist and gender equal in the world. When a group of Swedish creators began their official production of licensed scripts based on The Phantom comic in 1972, the character was redefined through the prism of New Left ideology. The plots of these comics, besides aiming to entertain, also sought to affirm for readers the righteousness and validity of an ideological doctrine that, at the time, was dominant among the Swedish public and influential in the country’s foreign policy. Ultimately, Aman demonstrates how the Swedish Phantom embodies values and a political point of view that reflect how Sweden sees itself and its role in the world.

An increasing number of educational policies, academic studies, and university courses today prop... more An increasing number of educational policies, academic studies, and university courses today propagate ‘interculturality’ as a method for approaching ‘the Other’ and reconciling universal values and cultural specificities. Based on a thorough discussion of Europe’s colonial past and the hierarchies of knowledge that colonialism established, Impossible Interculturality? interrogates the definitions of intercultural knowledge put forth by EU policy discourse, academic textbooks on interculturality, and students who have completed a university course on the subject. Taking a decolonial approach that makes its central concern the ways in which differences are formed and sustained through references to cultural identities, Robert Aman shows that interculturality, as defined in these texts, runs the risk of affirming a singular European outlook on the world, and of elevating this outlook into a universal law. Contrary to its self-proclaimed goal of learning from the Other, interculturality may in fact contribute to the repression of the Other by silencing those who are already muted.

Impossible Interculturality? suggests an alternative definition of interculturality, which is not framed in terms of cultural differences but in terms of colonial difference. This argument is substantiated by an analysis of the Latin American concept of interculturalidad, which derives from the struggles for public and political recognition among indigenous social movements in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. By bringing interculturalidad into the picture, with its roots in the particular and with strong reverberations of the historical experience of colonialism, this study explores the possibility of decentring the discourse of interculturality and its Eurocentric outlook. In this way, Impossible Interculturality? argues that an emancipation from colonial legacies requires that we start seeing interculturality as inter-epistemic rather than simply inter-cultural.

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2023

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2022

Inks, 2018

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2018

Third Text, 2016

In the Name of Interculturality: On Colonial Legacies in Intercultural Education, 2014

Cultural Studies, Mar 25, 2014

Confero | Vol. 1 | no. 1 | 2013 | pp. 5 - 18 | doi: 10.3384/confero.2001 - 4562.13v1i15

Editorial text for Confero. In this first number of the new journal Confero we engage with que... more Editorial text for Confero.

Cuadernos Interculturales, 2012

El presente artículo se centra en la problematización de reclamación de la Unión Europea, según l... more El presente artículo se centra en la problematización de reclamación de la Unión Europea, según la cual, el diálogo intercultural constituye un método para hablar a través de las fronteras culturales, basadas en la empatía mutua y no la dominación. Más precisamente, el objetivo es analizar qué se está construyendo como contraparte del diálogo intercultural a través del discurso producido por la Unión Europea. Para responder a la pregunta, los documentos de la política europea sobre el diálogo intercultural se analizan sobre la base de una perspectiva postcolonial. Como una interpretación, la Unión Europea se apropia de los símbolos históricos y figuras del pensamiento colonial para autorizar y legitimar sus objetivos actuales. En el ámbito de la Unión Europea, los europeos son retratados como una existencia a priori histórica, mientras que los excluidos de este concepto son evocados para demostrar su diferencia en comparación con el europeo. Sin embargo, los resultados muestran que los sujetos no considerados como europeos sirven como marcadores de la actual multiculturalidad del espacio europeo. Por lo tanto, el diálogo intercultural parece consolidar las diferencias entre europeo y Otro - el “nosotros” y el “ellos” en el diálogo - y no, como en línea con su objetivo, acercar a sujetos entre sí.

Teré: Revista de Filosofía y Socio política de la …, Jan 1, 2009

Cuestiones: Revista del Centro de Investigación en …, Jan 1, 2007

När Fantomen blev svensk. Vänsterns världsbild i trikå, 2022

Hans bok låter oss möta både superhjälten i trikåer och ett Sverige i en politisk och social brytningstid.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

Fönster mot språk och litteratur, Jan 1, 2008

SwePub titelinformation: Indianer, erövring och slaveri : Representerad historiesyn i svenska och... more SwePub titelinformation: Indianer, erövring och slaveri : Representerad historiesyn i svenska och colombianska läroböcker.

Denna rapport är resultatet av ett ettårigt forskningsprojekt som Folkbildningsrådet beviljat med... more Denna rapport är resultatet av ett ettårigt forskningsprojekt som Folkbildningsrådet beviljat medel till. Två av oss forskare, Lisbeth Eriksson och Martin Lundberg, formulerade en gång tankarna bakom projektet. Vi gjorde detta på basis av den kunskap och erfarenhet vi hade av att utvärdera och beforska delar av den institutionella folkbildande verksamheten i Sverige.

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2015

European Comic Art

This article analyses the works of Olivier Schrauwen with a particular focus on his comic Arsène ... more This article analyses the works of Olivier Schrauwen with a particular focus on his comic Arsène Schrauwen, which plays out in the colonial context of the Congo. It argues that Schrauwen’s comics exploit the formal qualities of the colonial adventure genre that is frequent in traditional European comics as a way of subverting and satirising them. It further argues that through a constant reliance on meta-references to other works and tropes recognisable from adventure tales, in combination with the adoption of a strict colonialist world view, Schrauwen humorously ridicules the asymmetrical binaries between coloniser and colonised.

This series concerns Comics Studies-with a capital "c" and a capital "s." It feels good to write ... more This series concerns Comics Studies-with a capital "c" and a capital "s." It feels good to write it that way. From emerging as a fringe interest within Literature and Media/Cultural Studies departments, to becoming a minor field, to maturing into the fastest growing field in the Humanities, to becoming a nascent discipline, the journey has been a hard but spectacular one. Those capital letters have been earned. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels covers all aspects of the comic strip, comic book, and graphic novel, explored through clear and informative texts offering expansive coverage and theoretical sophistication. It is international in scope and provides a space in which scholars from all backgrounds can present new thinking about politics, history, aesthetics, production, distribution, and reception as well as the digital realm.

Moderniteten sedd underifran: Kolonialitet, underordnade epistemologier och avlankning hos Walter... more Moderniteten sedd underifran: Kolonialitet, underordnade epistemologier och avlankning hos Walter Mignolo

Decolonising Intercultural Education, 2017

Pedagogy, Culture & Society, Jul 5, 2021

This article scrutinises the ways in which pupils who have experienced transnational migration co... more This article scrutinises the ways in which pupils who have experienced transnational migration construct ‘home’ and the unmaking of ‘home’. Researchers have argued that migrants’ perspectives on belonging are seldom granted scholarly attention. Here, we seek to redress this oversight by inquiring about the ways in which newly arrived migrants define their (un)homeliness in Sweden in the context of astate-sponsored introductory language programme. The focus is on how these pupils themselves define the notion of home, their sense of belonging, and what they envision as necessary to achieve in order to become part of the national community. What emerges in these stories is aconstant negotiation to fill the idea of ‘home’ with content. These negotiations take place in apresent, but always in relation to both apast and an imagined future– in which homeliness appears in different ways, with different meanings

I kolvattnet av senaste arens migrationsrorelser har en rad olika initiativ tagits for att mojlig... more I kolvattnet av senaste arens migrationsrorelser har en rad olika initiativ tagits for att mojliggora nyanlandas etablering i det svenska samhallet. En sadan insats har varit att pa prov erbjuda gy ...

Educational Alternatives in Latin America, 2019

In autumn 1943, in the midst of a burning world war, the map of South America is literally re-dra... more In autumn 1943, in the midst of a burning world war, the map of South America is literally re-drawn—or better still: one map. Joaquin Torres-Garcia, a Uruguayan artist and theorist, has finalized in his studio what is set to become his most renowned work of art: America invertida .

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Comparative Education Review, 2017

This essay seeks to wean interculturality from its comfort zone of flat substitutability across c... more This essay seeks to wean interculturality from its comfort zone of flat substitutability across cultural differences by pushing for the possibility of other ways of thinking about the concept depending on where (the geopolitics of knowledge) and by whom (the bodypolitics of knowledge) it is being articulated. In order to make a case for the importance of always considering the geopolitical and bodypolitical dimension of knowledge production within interculturality, this essay shifts focus away from policies of the European Union and UNESCO to the Andean region of Latin America. In that part of the world the notion of interculturalidadtranslation: interculturalityis not only a subject on the educational agenda, it has also become a core component among indigenous social movements in their push for decolonization. With reference points drawn from a decolonial perspective and the concept of "colonial difference", this essay makes the case that interculturalidad, with its roots in the historical experience of colonialism and in the particular, rather than in assertions of universality, offers another perspective on interculturality bringing into the picture other epistemologies. It concludes by arguing for the requirement to start seeing interculturality as inter-epistemic rather than simply inter-cultural.

International Journal of Lifelong Education, 2015

Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2015

This essay explores the ways in which boundaries of estrangement are produced in the academic lit... more This essay explores the ways in which boundaries of estrangement are produced in the academic literature assigned for courses on interculturality. As the existence of interculturality is dependent on the ascription of content to culture-since the notion, by definition, always involves more than one singular culture-this essay seeks to provide an answer to the question of what this literature, implicitly or otherwise, defines in terms of sameness vis-à-vis otherness, and thereby to chart the conditions for becoming intercultural. This question is especially important because the self in interculturality has to be, in principle, generalizable: it should signify a position available for occupation by anybody with proper training in this approach. Starting from the assumption that different experiences, languages and identities, already intersect with, and are contaminated by, one another under the name of culture, and are therefore already intercultural before being subjected to study under the auspices of 'interculturality' as an educational topic, the essay goes on to problematize the way in which interculturality tends to construe sameness and difference along national lines and does little to cater for multiple, as opposed to national, or other unified, identities.

British Educational Research Journal, 2014

This essay scrutinises the ways in which students who have completed a university course on inter... more This essay scrutinises the ways in which students who have completed a university course on interculturality distinguish between sameness and otherness in attempts to integrate, relate to, and build a bridge to those deemed culturally different. It makes use of interviews to analyse the factors that shape the interpretation of otherness and difference in the students' definitions of interculturality, as well as their statements about the relationships between us and them, and descriptions of instances of learning and teaching that have taken place between parties in different parts of the world. Theoretically, the essay is based on a postcolonial framework, highlighting the continuing influence of colonialism and Eurocentric ways of reasoning inside as well as outside the classroom in today's society. One of the main conclusions of the essay is that in the process of transferring knowledge, there is a risk that the history of modern Europe will be sanctioned as the historical trajectory for the rest of the world to follow, with the accompanying supposition that this can only be made possible by extending a helping hand to the Other.

Confero: Essays on Education, Philosophy and Politics, 2013

Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 2013

Academic courses on interculturality have become a rapidly growing discipline in the West, where ... more Academic courses on interculturality have become a rapidly growing discipline in the West, where supranational bodies such as the EU and UNESCO promote intercultural education as a path towards improved global cultural relations. Through interviews with students who completed a university course on interculturality, this essay investigates the tenets of interculturality and problematises whether this discourse merely reproduces a classificatory logic embedded in modernity that insists on differences among cultures. The argument put forward is that in the analysed context, interculturality tends to reproduce the very colonial ideas that it seeks to oppose. In doing so, interculturality reinforces the collective 'we' as the location of modernity by deciding who is culturally different and who is in a position that must be bridged to the mainstream by engaging in intercultural dialogue.

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2012

The present essay focuses on problematizing the European Union's claim that intercultural dialogu... more The present essay focuses on problematizing the European Union's claim that intercultural dialogue constitutes an advocated method of talking through cultural boundariesinside as well as outside the classroombased on mutual empathy and non-domination. More precisely, the aim is to analyze who is being constructed as counterparts of the intercultural dialogue through the discourse produced by the EU in policies on education, culture and intercultural dialogue. Within the Union, Europeans are portrayed as having an a priori historical existence, while the ones excluded from this notion are evoked to demonstrate its difference in comparison to the European one. The results show that subjects not considered as Europeans serve as markers of the multicultural present of the space. Thus, intercultural dialogue seems to consolidate differences between European and Other-the 'We' and 'Them' in the dialoguerather than, as in line with its purpose, bringing subjects together. [T]he primary goal of European cooperation should be to support the further development of education and training systems in the Member States which are aimed at promoting democratic values, social cohesion, active citizenship, and intercultural dialogue. In conjunction with what is being put forward by the Commission, the idea that dialogue constitutes an advocated method to talk through cultural differences embraces the problem that this essay seeks to deal with: every dialogue requires actors engaging in the communication and in this particular case it is those embedded in the idea of 'We'the rightful citizens of the Unionand its counterpart. There are no given traits, however, that turn a subject into 'French', 'Japanese' or, as in this case, 'European'rather, it is a geopolitical construction recalling the well-known words of Massimo D'Azeglio: 'We have created Italy; now we need to create Italians' (cited in Hogan, 2004, p. 90). References to a

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2018

The Phantom, an American comic about a superhero of British heritage set in a fictional African c... more The Phantom, an American comic about a superhero of British heritage set in a fictional African country, is held in highest esteem elsewhere, regarded as a national institution in Australia, New Zealand and much of Scandinavia. Since the early 1960s, officially licensed scripts have been produced by the Swedish-based scriptwriters of 'Team Fantomen' who today remain the major suppliers of adventures to the Phantom comics around the world. This essay suggests that this shift in the scripts' geographical origin also altered the politics of the comic: in the hands of Team Fantomen, the masked hero is instilled with political doctrines reflected in Swedish foreign policy during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This ideological shift means that the masked hero moves away from the role of colonialist fantasy prevalent in the American scripts to become a supporter of decolonization, social justice, and equality. The Phantom becomes an avatar of democratic socialist ideology, the episodes offering a direct commentary on Sweden's perception of its own role in the world as a leading proponent of international solidarity. 3 The Phantom had made its first appearance as a comic strip ten years earlier in 1940 in the pages of Veckorevyn. The series' longest run is with the daily broadsheet Svenska Dagbladet, in which it has never ceased to appear since its debut in 1942.

Adult Education Quarterly

Popular education has a long history in Sweden, dating back to the mid-1800s and having developed... more Popular education has a long history in Sweden, dating back to the mid-1800s and having developed in close relationship with the state. This relationship has been sustained over the years by the way popular education is spoken of as being “unique”—as being complementary to formal education. In this article, we focus on how the uniqueness of popular education is shaped today, and how it operates to legitimize further support. We draw on Barthes’ notion of myth, analyzing interviews with managers, principals, study circle leaders and teachers working with adult asylum seekers and refugees at study associations and folk high schools. We argue that the myth of the uniqueness of popular education is made up of three rhetorical figures that are mobilized by a range of actors legitimizing state support for popular education. The myth thus becomes a “tool” that commodifies popular education, that is, that turns the myth into monetary funds.

I kövattnet av senaste årens migrationsrörelser harr en rad initiativ tagits för att möjliggöra n... more I kövattnet av senaste årens migrationsrörelser harr en rad initiativ tagits för att möjliggöra nyanländas etablering i det svenska samhället. I denna rapport undersöks ett sådant, att på prov erbjuda gymnasieskolans språkintroduktionsprogram även på folkhögskola. I rapporten jämförs detta program, såsom det genomförs på gymnasium och på folkhögskola.

Teaching Comics

Comics are a staple of popular culture around the world, and research on comics as tools for educ... more Comics are a staple of popular culture around the world, and research on comics as tools for education shows the possibilities that comics offer educators. Yet the research on the use of comics in primary and secondary education is still scarce. Therefore, we are collecting suggestions for chapters for an edited collection that addresses the need for scholarly work on comics as a tool for educational practice. This collection addresses an audience of primary and secondary school teachers, librarians, parents, preservice teachers, teacher educators, and others. Chapters could include literary analysis of comics’ potential for teaching, as well as studies of classroom activities and teacher/student experiences. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to:
• The use of comics in teaching various school subjects: History, Mathematics, Geography etc. • Perspectives on curriculum and syllabus.
• Using comics for inclusive education.
• Cross-curricular/Interdisciplinary school work with comics.
For any questions on a particular topic for the collection, please do not hesitate to contact the editors.
Guidelines and Deadlines
Abstracts submitted for consideration are due by October 31, 2020. They should be 250-300 words in length and include a tentative title and brief bio of the contributor(s). Please send your submissions simultaneously to both editors Robert Aman (robert.aman@liu.se) and Lars Wallner (lars.wallner@liu.se). Selections will be made, and notifications emailed by November 15, 2020. The book proposal will be sent to prospective publishers by December 1, 2020. Full chapters of 5,000-6,000 words will be due by June 1, 2021.
Editors
Robert Aman is Associate Professor in Education at Linköping University, Sweden. His background is in secondary school teaching of History and Spanish. He primarily conducts research on ideology and the politics of representation in comics. He has published several articles about racism, legacies of colonialism and cultural translation in American and Swedish comics. His most recent book, The Phantom Comics and the New Left (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), was published in 2020.
Lars Wallner is a Senior Lecturer at Linköping University working in the field of Pedagogic Practices. His background is in secondary school teaching of English, Religion and Philosophy, and his research explores the use of comics, games and popular fiction, mainly regarding education and social interaction. He has published several articles on the use of comics in primary and secondary education, and his book, Det rutiga klassrummet: serier, multimodalitet och litteracitet [Swe: The plaid classroom: comics, multimodality and literacy], was published in 2020.
A Note about Publication
The editors have already contacted university press editors regarding the collection and will submit a full proposal after all first drafts of the accepted chapters have been received. Research on Teaching with Comics [working title] will only be submitted to academic publishers with an established reputation for publishing on comics.