Author: rijafaisal

Student: Rija Faisal

How has the academic reception of popular genres changed over time?

And

What might the value be of studying them?

As a field of study on its own, popular genre has only recently started to be widely accepted and studied in universities. One can say, in the academic world, this branch of fiction was rather, “unpopular”.

The categories of popular genre include:

Anime.

Comics.

Science fiction.

Fantasy fiction.

For a long period of time, popular genre, or genre fiction as it is also known, was widely excluded from the literary and academic world. These works of fiction were not taken as seriously as classic literature, which is still considered to be a more “elevated” form of literature, and this perspective remained among the academic elite for quite some time.

Slowly, however, as these works of fiction evolved and advanced, they established their own place in the academic world.

Benefits of studying popular genre or popular fiction:

Broadens our horizons.

We get to learn about and come to understand people who are different from us.

Helps us to refine our own writing skills.

Teaches us about universal human experience.

References:

(n.d.). importance of studying literature e notes Homework Help. Retrieved from: https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/why-study-literature-important-what-skills-do-408329

by Rija Faisal

What is the alleged connection between Hergé’s early comics and propaganda?

Tintin, or The Adventures of Tintin, is a comic series by the Belgian cartoonist Herge. Tintin is the titular protagonist of the series. He is a reporter and an adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy.

Known by the pen name Herge, the creator of Tintin, Georges Prosper Remi, was born in 1907 in Belgium. He began his career by contributing illustrations to Scouting magazines. He developed his first comic series, The Adventures of Totor, for Le Boy – Scout Belge in 1926. Working for Le Vingtieme Siecle, a conservative Catholic newspaper, Herge created The Adventures of Tintin in 1929.

The early installments of the Tintin comic series – Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in America and Tintin in Congo – were designed as conservative propaganda.

Herge’s work on the wartime newspaper (Le Soir), which was controlled by the Nazi administration, is well documented, as is the fact that some of his earlier Tintin comics spread far-right ideas to children. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in Congo are among the most controversial, with Tintin in the Land of the Soviets being so direct in its anti-communist propaganda that in later years, Herge would try to suppress its publication. In Tintin in Congo, Tintin travels to his country’s former colony and is depicted as “civilizing” the native people ( the natives are portrayed with a combination of racism and inferiority, as stupid and lazy people) and dispensing his “white man’s” knowledge to the natives.

In another Tintin story ( The Shooting Star, about a European expedition to recover a meteorite from the Arctic ) the rival expedition is portrayed as America and it is funded by a greedy Jewish financier named Bluemnstein. He was depicted as a stereotypical Jewish villain. In later editions, Bluemenstein was renamed Bohlwinkel and he came from the fictional country of Sao Rico. The story painted an anti-Semitic caricature that remained even in later years.

References

(20 November, 2017). Why Tintin illustrations by Politically Controversial Herge Break the 1m Mark Artlyst.com. Retrieved from: https://www.artlyst.com/tintin-illustrations-politically-controversial-herge-break-1m-mark/