Contents of this Editorial

issue Welcome to the Spring issue of the EPOP Project

Newsletter. Popular Roots of European Culture through
1) EPOP database to be tested, p. 1 Film, Comics and Serialized Literature is funded by the
2) The Leiden EPOP members, p. 2 European Culture Programme 2007.
3) News, p. 3
Please send all contributions to: federico.pagello@unibo.it.
4) Recent publications on popular literature, p. 4

1) EPOP database to be tested

The diversity of the research output envisaged by EPOP demands a concerted and tightly controlled
data gathering effort. An online database will be created to aid in this effort. At the first meeting of the
EPOP project members, in Limoges in December 2008, a design for such a database was first sketched
out. Now the Géomatique department of the University of Limoges has implemented a prototype that
can be put to the test over the next couple of months.

The EPOP Project aims to deliver a diverse research
output, including a virtual museum, a collection of
essays, a website, and an educational cd-rom. All of
these products will be based on information
collected in a database. The usefulness of such a tool
is self-evident: the storage of qualitative information
in a such a way that it can also be quantified enables
the handling of a large amount of comparative data.
It also allows new corpora to emerge from the data.
Furthermore, as an online resource, the database will
give to the EPOP network members the possibility
to contribute remotely according to their specific
competences.
The EPOP database will collect exhaustive
information about the canon of popular texts which
forms the root of European media culture. The stake
is of great relevance, since the large popularity of
these works does not imply that we are provided with
a specialized and full knowledge of them. Their
ability to migrate from one medium to another and
across national boundaries make it, paradoxically,
difficult to trace the genesis and circulation and of
popular culture texts. Using the tools provided by
national libraries (notably through the The European
Library portal, which makes the catalogue of
European libraries available at http://

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search.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/en/index.html)
the EPOP network will try to fill the gaps in the
knowledge of this corpus thanks to the use of the
archives and data supplied by previous research.
During the month of April an EPOP database
prototype will be tested by the EPOP network
researchers. Its framework was designed by Farid
Boumédiène, at Géomatique of the University of
Limoges. This experimental phase will last one
month and be limited to written texts (novels, ‘ciné-
romans’, feuilleton and comics). If the results are
positive the database can be placed online, completed
with a shared data capture interface (in PHP/MySQL
format). The prototype will then be extended to
include performing arts and audiovisual texts.
2) The Leiden EPOP
members
In the previous newsletter we introduced the EPOP
team members of the University of Leiden: Adriaan
van der Weel from the department of Book and
Digital Media Studies; Yasco Horsman from
Comparative Literature (both units in the newly
established Institute for Cultural Disciplines in the
Faculty of Humanities); and Peter Verhaar, an IT
specialist from the University Library.
The approach to Book studies taken in the Book
and Digital Media Studies department is inspired by
the French Annales school, emphasising the role of
the book in society at large. The best-known
examples of major historical events in which the
book was a decisive factor are no doubt the
Renaissance, the Reformation, and the scientific
revolution. But the evolution of mass literacy in the
nineteenth century is no less momentous.
In the course of that single century in Europe a
virtually complete literacy was achieved. Social
reform movements, followed by emancipation
movements—of workers, women, religious groups,
and ethnic and linguistic minorities—all contributed
When finished, the EPOP database will permit to
rapidly obtain carefully verified information about
the history of the texts to be studied. Which is the
first edition of a given work? How many translations
have been made? What reviews are there? The
systematic addition of geographical data, concerning
authors, editions, but also the narratives themselves,
will allow the European dimension of the texts to be
explored as well, visualizing how they belong to a
transnational culture. In conclusion, the database will
help us to understand how we get from the ‘roots’ of
media culture to the rhizomes and networks which
grew up in nineteenth and twentieth-century
Europe, riddled by questions of national identity.
to an ever-growing participation in print culture, both
at the production and at the consumption end. The
social significance of this vigorous development of
mass literacy can hardly be underestimated. The role
of all forms of popular literature in this development
was obviously great.
Popular literature can be said to have been both
cause and consequence of the increasing
participation in print culture. It had an emancipating
function, but equally served to perpetuate stereotypes
of all kinds. That more attention for the
phenomenon of popular literature is warranted will
have become clear. This is as true from a book
studies point of view as it is from the perspective of
literary studies, cultural studies, translation studies
and, not least, media studies. At the same time as the
book’s social importance grew, new—mass—media
made their appearance, such as film, radio, and later
television. This meant that the place of the book in
society had to be constantly redefined. Naturally, the
definition of literacy, too, had to change along with
the relative position of the book in the total
spectrum of the media.
The department of Book and Digital Media
Studies is very pleased to bring its book studies
perspective to the EPOP project.
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3) News
A Century of Italian Comics
The National Committee ‘A Century of Italian
Comics’ (Comitato Nazionale Un Secolo di Fumetto
Italiano) recently opened its website, which explores
the history of Italian comics through the most
influential authors, works and characters. It can be
accessed at http://www.fumetto100.it/ita/index.asp.
Italian Comics were born in 1908 on the pages of Il
Corriere dei Piccoli and the Committee celebrates this
important anniversary with an exhibition entitled
‘Corriere dei Piccoli. Storie, fumetto e illustrazione
per ragazzi’ in Milan (22 January -17 May 2009,
Rotonda di Via Besana, via Besana 12 ). Many more
activities are planned for the future, such as
conferences, books and exhibitions.
A number of books related to this celebration
were published last year also.
• About the history of Italian comics see the
collection of essays edited by Sergio Brancato: Il
secolo del fumetto: Lo spettacolo a strisce nella
società italiana, 1908-2008, Latina: Tunué, 2008;
• About the history of Il Corriere dei Piccoli see the
anthology edited by Matteo Stefanelli and Fabio
Gadduci, Il secolo del Corriere dei Piccoli: Un’antologia del
più amato settimanale illustrato, Milano: Rizzoli, 2008;
• About Antonio Rubino, one of the greatest
Italian comic artist who worked on Il Corriere dei
Piccoli, see Santo Alligo, Antonio Rubino: I libri illustrati,
Torino: Little Nemo, 2008.
Conference on Hergé
‘L’affaire Hergé. Un mythe fondateur? Je dirais
même plus !...’ Conference Louvain-la-Neuve, 17
March 2009
Celebrating Tintin’s 80 years, the ‘year of the comics’
in Brussels, and the opening of a museum dedicated
to Hergé in Louvain-la-Neuve this year, the GRIT
(UCL research group on Image and Text) is pleased
to announce a debate about Hergé’s works. The
meeting will be hosted by Pierre Marlet (ULB &
Belgium’s national television network) and will bring
together several Hergé connoisseurs and/or comics
strip specialists: Jan Baetens, Vincent Baudoux,
Philippe Godin, Jean-Claude Jouret, Philippe Marion,
Jean-Louis Tilleuil, etc. It will take place March 17
from 6 pm to 8 pm at the Salle du Conseil of UCL’s
Faculty of Philosophy and Literature (Arts and
Humanities) at 1, Blaise Pascal Sq. in Louvain-la-
Neuve (Belgium). Among other subjects, Hergé’s
influence on European comics strip and European
identity will be discussed.
Colloquium on the comic strip
‘Lire et produire des bandes dessinees a l’ecole’,
Centre de recherches en didactique de la
littérature, Université Stendhal Grenoble III, 19–21
May 2010 (http://www.fabula.org/actualites/
article29689.php)
The Centre de recherches en didactique de la
littérature (cedilit)is organising a colloquium on the
use of the bande dessinée (bd) in the (French) school
curriculum. Noting that the bd is beginning to be
taken more seriously, the organisers aim to stimulate
pedagogical and didactic reflexion on the use of the
medium in schools. The focus will be on primary and
secondary schools, but pedagogical experience with
its application in the university curriculum will also
be considered.
Paper proposals may be sent to Nicolas Rouvière
(nrouviere38@yahoo.fr) or Jean-François Massol (j-
f.massol@wanadoo.fr) before 30 June 2009 The
official language of the colloquium will be French.
Colloquium on Jules Verne’s
Voyages extraordinaires
‘Les Voyages extraordinaires de Jules Verne: de la
création à la réception’, Centre d’études du roman
et du romanesque de l’Université de Picardie Jules
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 Verne, 18–20 November 2010 (http://
www.fabula.org/actualites/article26107.php)
The colloquium will address questions concerning
the authorial production of Jules Verne’s work on the
one hand and concerning its public reception on the
other. Of particular interest to EPOP members will
be the question about the reception of Jules Verne’s
oeuvre abroad. Are there national or regional
differences in the reception of individual works, and
is it possible to discern a geographical and
chronological order in the publication of translations
or adaptations of the oeuvre?
Paper proposals may be sent to Marie-Françoise
Melmoux-Montaubin (marie.montaubin@laposte.net)
or to Christophe Reffait (christophe.reffait@free.fr)
before 1 September 2009.

Hermesmeier, Wolfgang & Schmatz, Stefan (ed.), Karl-

4) Recent May Jahrbuch 1935, Bamberg Rade-beul, Karl-May

publications on Verlag, 2009, 480 pages, http://www.karl-may-

popular literature
Galli Mastrodonato, Paola Irene (ed.) Il tesoro di Emilio.
Omaggio a Salgari, Imola, Bacchilega Editore, 2008,
160 pages, http://www.bacchilegaeditore.it/
home_bacchilegaeditore.php?
n=libri&book_id=77&l=it.
Il tesoro di Emilio contains the proceeding of a
conference on to the work of Emilio Salgari, which
was held in Ostia Lido (Rome) on 2 and 3 April 2007.
Contributors include scholars, writers, directors, and
journalists such as Giulio Leoni, Ann Lawson Lucas,
Maria Gabriella Dionisi, Daniele Cicuzza, Gianfranco
De Turris, Paola Irene Galli Mastrodonato, Ada
Neiger, Roberto Fioraso, Fabrizio Foni, Claudio Gallo,
Giulia Gadaleta, Corrado Farina, Nicoletta Gruppi,
Alessandro Bottero, Luigi De Liguori, Umberto Lenzi
(interviewed by Corrado Farina). Afterword by
Vittorio Frigerio.
verlag.de/frame.htm?http://www.karl-may-
verlag.de/modules/kmprod.php?
index=B&nr=01935
Petzel, Michael & Wehnert, Jürgen (ed.), Karl-May
Welten III, Bamberg Radebeul, Karl-May Verlag,
2009, 232 pages, http://www.karl-may-verlag.de/
frame.htm?http://www.karl-may-verlag.de/
modules/kmprod.php?index=B&nr=03027
Hubbard, Tom (ed.), Rudyard Kipling, London,
Pickering & Chatto, 2009, 431 pages, http://
www.pickeringchatto.com/major_works/
lives_of_victorian_literary_figures_part_vii
Stiebel, Lindy (ed.), Henry Rider Haggard, London,
Pickering & Chatto, 2009, 351 pages, http://
www.pickeringchatto.com/major_works/
lives_of_victorian_literary_figures_part_vii
Radford, Andrew, Victorian Sensation Fiction, New York,
Palgrave Macmillan 2009, 217, pages, http://
www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=279173
Marginalia: Bulletin bibliographique des études sur les
littératures et les films populaires, n. 60, March 2009,
http://www.cerli.org/bibliographie/Marginalia/

About this Newsletter:

EPOP Project Newsletter provides news about the development of the project activities and circulates
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