Throughout the 20th and 21st century graphic storytelling has served as a significant,though often underestimated means for disseminating and negotiating emancipationnarratives. Such narratives play a pivotal role in socialist and post-socialist societies inLatin America and Eastern Europe since the Cold War and after 1989. For instance, inCuba comic hero Elpidio Valdés was meant to show children and adults the courage ofthe 19th century anti-colonial fighters while his creator Juan Padrón transformed hisexperience in the USSR into a part of his graphic autobiography. In the Soviet Unionimage-text narratives about Cuba, such as the children’s books by Vasily Chichkov, VitalyKorzhikov or others, not only helped to reinforce the idea of the USSR’s superiority asmaster and mentor of socialist emancipation, but in some cases emphasized theautonomy of Cuban cultural development, thereby challenging the official Sovietnarrative. Regardless of such telling examples, little research has been conducted so farto unravel the role of graphic storytelling in emancipation discourses within therespective regions. Even fewer studies have explored comparative perspectives ortransatlantic entanglements between Latin America—particularly Cuba, the “adoredchild of the socialist world” (Anne Gorsuch 2015: 520)—and Eastern Europe in thiscontext.

Although often dismissed as mere popular entertainment or children’s fare, image-text narratives such as comics, illustrated books, and graphic novels have long served aspowerful tools for conveying political messages—ranging from state propaganda todissident views. Moreover, in the second half of the 20th century an underground comicscene emerged that sought to escape this dichotomy. What unites the various types ofmultimodal storytelling is their apparently intuitive accessibility appealing to a wide-ranged readership. As a result, image-text narratives often address multiple audiencesand may entail ambiguity. The interplay of verbal and visual strands of narration andrepresentation offers a wide range of possibilities for producing different layers ofmeaning, in particular in terms of time, spatiality, and perspective “asking us to read backand forth between images and words” (Marianne Hirsch 2004, 12–13).

The workshop focuses on the tension between official and unofficial, as well ascollective and individual narratives of emancipation. These include, among others,socialist narratives of liberation from feudalism, colonialism, and slavery, as well as post-socialist narratives portraying the end of socialism as the “end of history” and entry intothe so-called “free” world. Of particular interest are ex-centric emancipation narrativesthat engage critically with official discourses—for example, those emerging from exileand diaspora, from youth cultures, or from other societal groups such as LGBTQI+communities, ethnic minorities, religious groups, and others. Favoring both acomparative and an entangled history approach we seek to gather a small group ofscholars interested in socialist and postsocialist graphic narratives from Cuba andEastern Europe for an intensive discussion-centered workshop. Contributions may focuson structural, thematic, or aesthetic analogies, as well as on specific entanglementsbetween Cuba and Eastern Europe. Joint proposals by scholars working in Latin Americanand Eastern European studies are particularly welcome.

Contributions may address the following questions:

• How do Cuban and Eastern European image-text narratives of the Cold War andthe post-1989 period construct narratives of emancipation at the intersection ofindividual and collective, child and adult, dependence and autonomy,nationalism and internationalism, diaspora and homeland?
• How, in what forms, and for what purposes do these narratives circulate betweenEastern Europe and Cuba?
• What representations of Cuba are created in Eastern European image-textnarratives and vice versa? What comparisons are drawn between regionallyspecific emancipation movements (e.g. abolition, end of serfdom) and to whatend?
• How and to what extent do these image-text narratives position themselvesbetween different cultural, political, and economic centers?

The workshop is organized by Anne Brüske (Department for Interdisciplinary andMultiscalar Area Studies / University of Regensburg) and Karoline Thaidigsmann (SlavicDepartment / Heidelberg University). It will take place on March 25–27, 2026 at the University of Regensburg. We are in the process of securing funding to reimburseparticipants’ travel and accommodation costs.

Proposals with an abstract of 300 wordsand and a short CV (max. 150 words) can be submitted by September 15, 2025.

Please direct your proposal and any inquiries to: anne.brueske@ur.de and andkaroline.thaidigsmann@slav.uni-heidelberg.de 

(Quelle: Aussendung)