4th Transnational Literary Journalism Summer School

“Comics Journalism, BD Reportage, Documentary Manga:

Graphic Literary Journalism around the World” 

1–5 June 2026

Université de Lorraine (Nancy, France)

Literary journalism – or journalism as literature – is journalistic writing that reads like fiction but which is essentially based on immersive research, eyewitness accounts and verifiable facts as closely scrutinized as possible. Situated comfortably between two axes of media pedagogy and research, literary journalism (journalisme littéraire in French, periodismo narrativo in Spanish, ruporutāju in Japansese, reportaż in Polish, and literarische Reportage in German) represents a form of written communication that is both literary and journalistic in form and aesthetic but which informs and educates the public, provides detailed historical and cultural contexts and editorial commentaries and, potentially, alters socio-political policy and opinion. Comics journalism – or its European and Japanese cousins, respectively BD reportage and documentary manga – is a graphic form of literary journalism, which combines text and illustration to vehicle its message. Researched, written and drawn, comics journalism injects into the final narrative a visual subjectivity that complicates the textual one already present.

This five-day graduate course for Master’s and PhD students – throughout Europe and, potentially, Asia – of Journalism, Communications, Media Studies, English, Spanish, German, Japanese or French Literature, History, Cultural Studies or Government Policy will explore how current trends in graphic literary journalism in France, Colombia, Spain, Japan, Britain, Germany and the U.S. is reshaping the media landscape of each country, providing a significant panacea not only to counter the decline in traditional print media readership but also to placate the readers’ growing distrust in that media’s global message.

Following morning and afternoon workshops and lectures on eight principal themes treated in graphic literary journalism (war and trauma, immigration, drug trafficking, autocratic politics and social inequalities), students (master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral) and interested faculty members will be introduced to the historical and cultural motivations behind the current popularity of graphic literary journalism in many corners of the world. Professional French cartoonist Yan Lindingre will hold a masterclass on documentary graphic reportage for the attendees.

At the end of the course, students will be required to develop their own pedagogical unit (modeled after one of the six themes presented or based on an entirely different theme not addressed during the course) and present it orally in English before the group.

This Summer School is recognized by the Erasmus+ Mobility/Staff Training program. To learn more about obtaining Erasmus+ Staff Mobility.

The Summer School is sponsored in part by the “Lorraine Université d’Excellence” (part of the France 2030 Program, reference ANR-15-IDEX-04-LUE), the LUE International Booster Tohoku – IDEA grant, the research center IDEA (199713889P) and the Humanities Faculty of the Université de Lorraine (ALL Nancy). Other partners (RECOLTE) have also been contacted.