Rebuilding Story Worlds: The Obscure Cities by Schuiten and Peeters (Critical Graphics)

Synopsis

A collaboration between Belgian artist François Schuiten and French writer Benoît Peeters, The Obscure Cities is one of the few comics series to achieve massive popularity while remaining highly experimental in form and content. Set in a parallel world, full of architecturally distinctive city-states, The Obscure Cities also represents one of the most impressive pieces of world-building in any form of literature. Rebuilding Story Worlds offers the first full-length study of this seminal series, exploring both the artistic traditions from which it emerges and the innovative ways it plays with genre, gender, and urban space. Comics scholar Jan Baetens examines how Schuiten’s work as an architectural designer informs the series’ concerns with the preservation of historic buildings. He also includes an original interview with Peeters, which reveals how poststructuralist critical theory influenced their construction of a rhizomatic fictional world, one which has made space for fan contributions through the Alta Plana website. Synthesizing cutting-edge approaches from both literary and visual studies, Rebuilding Story Worlds will give readers a new appreciation for both the aesthetic ingenuity of The Obscure Cities and its nuanced conception of politics.

Copyright:

2020

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781978808492

Related ISBNs:

9781978808485, 9781978808478

Publisher:

Rutgers University Press

Date of Addition:

06/12/20

Copyrighted By:

Jan Baetens

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts

Grade Levels:

Eleventh grade

Reading Age:

16 and up

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.