28 min
2. Prof Charles Forsdick Podcasts from the bagne
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- History
The podcast where we discuss disease, contagion, confinement and isolation in France’s overseas penal colonies. This podcast is part of the Postcards from the bagne research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/R002452/1). Have a look at our project blog, follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
Today's guest is Professor Charles Forsdick who is James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool. Since 2012 Charles has been AHRC Theme Leadership Fellow for 'Translating Cultures'. He recently led an international project on '"Dark Tourism" in Comparative Perspective: Sites of Suffering, Sites of Memory' which included fieldwork in French Guiana, New Caledonia and Vietnam. He has published widely on travel writing, colonial history, postcolonial literature, comics, penal culture and the afterlives of slavery. Charles’ article, ‘Postcolonializing the bagne’, published in 2018 analyses ‘new critical and aesthetic approaches to the penal colony’ (Forsdick, 2018: 237). The article is open access.
It was a pleasure to record Charles in late November and I found his discussion of contagion and disease in representations of the bagne in popular culture absolutely fascinating. In the episode, Charles discusses his recent project on dark tourism and heritage, how this led to an interest in visual representations of these sites in popular culture, especially in films and bandes dessinées (French comics). He explores how these forms of popular culture draw on tropes of confinement, contagion and the dehumanisation of the incarcerated body. I particularly enjoyed his comments on the grammar of confinement, how contagion is used to drive ahead the narrative in these visual forms and the role of the hospital in representations of the bagne.
In the episode, Charles mentions two comics entitled Paco Les Mains Rouges, by Fabien Vehlmann and Eric Sagot.
Charles is on Twitter @charlesforsdick.
The podcast where we discuss disease, contagion, confinement and isolation in France’s overseas penal colonies. This podcast is part of the Postcards from the bagne research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/R002452/1). Have a look at our project blog, follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
Today's guest is Professor Charles Forsdick who is James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool. Since 2012 Charles has been AHRC Theme Leadership Fellow for 'Translating Cultures'. He recently led an international project on '"Dark Tourism" in Comparative Perspective: Sites of Suffering, Sites of Memory' which included fieldwork in French Guiana, New Caledonia and Vietnam. He has published widely on travel writing, colonial history, postcolonial literature, comics, penal culture and the afterlives of slavery. Charles’ article, ‘Postcolonializing the bagne’, published in 2018 analyses ‘new critical and aesthetic approaches to the penal colony’ (Forsdick, 2018: 237). The article is open access.
It was a pleasure to record Charles in late November and I found his discussion of contagion and disease in representations of the bagne in popular culture absolutely fascinating. In the episode, Charles discusses his recent project on dark tourism and heritage, how this led to an interest in visual representations of these sites in popular culture, especially in films and bandes dessinées (French comics). He explores how these forms of popular culture draw on tropes of confinement, contagion and the dehumanisation of the incarcerated body. I particularly enjoyed his comments on the grammar of confinement, how contagion is used to drive ahead the narrative in these visual forms and the role of the hospital in representations of the bagne.
In the episode, Charles mentions two comics entitled Paco Les Mains Rouges, by Fabien Vehlmann and Eric Sagot.
Charles is on Twitter @charlesforsdick.
28 min