College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

As part of its Francophone Artists, Bandes Dessinées, and Diasporic Graphics series, the France-Florida Research Institute is delighted to welcome Dr. Terry Harpold to discuss the middle voice of EcoComix by reading Saison Brune by Philippe Squarzoni.

French graphic journalist Philippe Squarzoni’s Saison brune (2012, 2019), published in English translation as Climate Changed: A Personal Journey through the Science (2014), is one of the most compelling ecocomix of recent memory.

The book is noteworthy for the scientific rigor of its discussion of the effects of anthropogenic global warming, and for Squarzoni’s sober reflections on his personal contributions to the growing crisis.

In this talk, Harpold will discuss the book’s distinctive, self-aware narrative presentation. Harpold proposes that visual and structural elements of the image-text are comparable to markers of the verbal category of natural languages known as the middle voice. He argues that these elements are cues for the book’s reflexive ethical argument: that the author and reader (Squarzoni, you, I) are called to bear witness to our complicity in the causes of climate change and to confront imaginative and practical limits to our efforts to mitigate its effects. Squarzoni’s use of a comics middle voice has, Harpold suggests, wider significance for the reception of nonfiction ecocomix.