Medieval Spaces in Comics Affect and Ideology

This book proposes a conceptual framework for analyzing and discussing narrative space in comics. Building on Mieke Bal’s phenomenological approach to cultural analysis (2002), Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space (1996), and Geraint D’Arcy’s use of the mise en scène to describe space in the comics format (2020), this book layers in a nuanced approach to the depiction of medieval environments through affect theory and poetics to interrogate the staging of ideas which are associated with the medieval period. Considering the action, setting, and story – as well as affect, atmosphere, and mood – medieval space is contextualized as an ethically complex poetic image. This book also explores the communicative possibilities of the comics format, and seeks to show rather than just tell the methodologies of space in comics-based research through illustrating key sections of the text.

1. Introduction.- 2. Canonic Space.- 3. Eulogized Space.- 4. Unnatural Realms.- 5. Projected Archeology.- 6. Reader Space.- 7. Conclusion.

Elizabeth Allyn Woock is an assistant professor in the Department of English and American Studies at Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. Her work focuses on medieval history and medievalisms, as well as comics studies and comics-based research. She is interested in exploring how the comics format can be harnessed for academic writing and takes every opportunity to explore this methodology.