Nancy Pedri

Position

Full Professor

Education

  • Postdoctoral Fellow (Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis)
  • PhD, Comparative Literature (University of Toronto)
  • MA, Comparative Literature (University of Toronto)
  • BA Hons, French and Italian Literature and Language (University of Windsor)

Contact Information

Research Interests

Image-Word Relations, Photography in Fiction, Comics, Graphic Memoir

Selected Publications

Books and Edited Volumes

  • Focalization in Action: Visual Analysis of Graphic Narrative. (with Silke Horstkotte). Columbus: The Ohio State UP. 241 ms pages (accepted with revisions).
  • Mixing Visual Media in Comics. Editor. Spec. issue of ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies vol. 9, no. 2, 2017. http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/
  • Enlightening Encounters: Photography in Italian Literature. Co-editor: Giorgia Alù. University of Toronto Press, 2015.
  • The Narrative Functions of Photography in Comics. Editor. Spec. issue of Image & Narrative, vol. 16, no. 2, Spring 2015. http://www.imageandnarrative.be/
  • Picturing the Language of Images. Co-editor: Laurence Petit. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.
  • Photography in Fiction. Co-editor: Silke Horstkotte. Spec. issue of Poetics Today, vol. 29, no. 1, Spring 2008. http://poeticstoday.dukejournals.org
  • Travelling Concepts III: Memory, Narrative, Image. Editor. ASCA UP, 2003.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

  • “Photography and the Layering of Perspective in Graphic Memoir.” ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, 2017. 14 pp. www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v9_2/pedri/
  • “Introduction: Mixing Visual Media in Comics.” ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, 2017. 8 pp. www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v9_2/introduction/introduction/shtml
  • “The Body at Work: Subjectivity in Graphic Memoir.” Co-author: Dr. Silke Horstkotte. Representations of Subjectivity across Media, edited by Maike Reinerth and Jan-Noël Thon, Routledge, 2016, pp. 77-91.
  • “What’s the Matter of Seeing in Graphic Memoir?” Graphic Representation: Contemporary Graphic Narrative, edited by Nicole Stamant, special issue of South Central Review, vol. 32, no.3, Fall 2015, pp. 8-29.
  • “Thinking about Photography in Comics.” Image & Narrative, vol. 16, no.2, Spring 2015, pp. 1-13.
  • “Narrated Photographs and the Collapse of Time and Space in Erri de Luca’s Non ora, non qui.” Enlightening Encounters: Photography in Italian Literature, edited by Giorgia Alù and Nancy Pedri. University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 122-140.
  • “Photo-Literary Encounters in Italy” (with Giorgia Alù). Enlightening Encounters: Photography in Italian Literature, edited by Giorgia Alù and Nancy Pedri, University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 3-25.
  • “Writing with Light: Concluding Remarks.” Co-author: Dr. Giorgia Alù. Enlightening Encounters: Photography in Italian Literature, edited by Giorgia Alù and Nancy Pedri, University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 279-284.
  • “Re-visualizing the Map in Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang.” Le dispositive texte / image, edited by Julie LeBlanc, special issue of Arborescence: Revue d’études françaises, vol. 4, November 2014, pp. 99-114. http://www.erudit.org/revue/arbo/2014/v/n4/1027434ar.pdf
  • “Empty Photographic Frames: Punctuating the Narrative.” Image & Narrative, vol. 15, no.4, 2014, pp. 60-76. http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/538/391
  • “Disenchanted with the Referent: Photography in Emanuele Martino’s Cara fotografia: Racconti.” Italica, vol. 91, no. 2, Summer 2014, pp. 203-218.
  • “Rendering the Familiar Unfamiliar: Art Spiegelman's Maus." Picturing the Language of Images, edited by Nancy Pedri and Laurence Petit, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, pp. 455-470.
  • “Picturing the Language of Images.” Co-author: Dr. Laurence Petit. Picturing the Language of Images, edited by Nancy Pedri and Laurence Petit, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, pp. 1-12.
  • "Graphic Memoir: Neither Fact nor Fiction.” From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative, edited by Daniel Stein and Jan-Noël Thon. Narratologia Series, DeGruyter, 2013, pp. 127-153.
  • "Cartooning Ex-Posing Photography in Graphic Memoir." Literature & Aesthetics, vol. 22, no. 2, December 2012, pp. 248-266.
  • “When Photographs Aren’t Quite Enough: Reflections on Photography and Cartooning in Le Photographe." ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, vol. 6, no.1, Fall 2011, pp. 1-18.
  • http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v6_1/pedri/
  • “Focalization in Graphic Narrative.” Co-author: Dr. Silke Horstkotte. Narrative, vol. 19, no. 3, October 2011, pp. 330-357.
  • “Failing the Feminine: Photographed Words in Lincoln Clarkes’ Heroines.” Debating the Difference: Gender, Representation and Self Representation, edited by Rachel Jones, Hamid van Koten, Chris Murray, and Keith Williams, University of Dundee Press, 2010. 11 pages (PDF file) ISBN 1 899837 60 4. http://www.scottishwordimage.org/debatingdifference/abstracts.html
  • Reprinted in Debating the Difference: Gender, Representation and Self-Representation, edited by Rachel Jones, Hamid van Koten, Chris Murray, and Keith Williams, University of Dundee, 2010, pp. 1-11.
  • “The Forbidden Narratives of Looking: Photography and the Anxiety of Self-Representation.” Rewriting Texts, Remaking Images: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Leslie Boldt-Irons, Corrado Federici, and Ernesto Virgulti, Peter Lang, 2010, pp. 261-268.
  • “Cartographic Explorations of Self in Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family and Jacques Poulin’s Volkswagen Blues.” International Journal for Canadian Studies, vol. 38, 2009, pp. 41-60.
  • “Documenting the Fictions of Reality.” Poetics Today, vol. 29, no.1, Spring 2008, pp. 155-173.
  • “Introduction: Photographic Interventions.” Co-author: Silke Horstkotte. Poetics Today, vol. 29, no.1, Spring 2008, pp. 1-29.
  • “Le silence photographique, un geste provocateur.” Littérature et photographie, edited by Jean-Pierre Montier, Liliane Louvel, Danièle Méaux, Philippe Ortel, Presse Universitaire Rennes, 2008, pp. 391-397.
  • “Portraiture’s Unruly Faces: Beauty in Jo Spence’s Putting Myself in the Picture.” Beauty and the Abject: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Leslie Boldt-Irons, Corrado Federici, and Ernesto Virgulti, Lang, 2007, pp. 131-145.
  • “Here’s Looking at Me: Exposing Gender in Gender Outlaw and The Last Time I Wore a Dress.” Texte, vol. 39/40, 2006, pp. 277-294.
  • “The Portrait, a Struggle to See.” Co-author: Richard-Max Tremblay. Circa, vol. 116, Summer 2006, pp. 125-126.
  • “Critical Encounters with Gender: Photography in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.” In-between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism, vol. 14, no. 2, 2005, pp. 167-176.
  • “Showing the Places You Tell: Visual Evidence in Travel Writing.” Seeing Things: Literature and the Visual. Ed. Peter Vernon. Spec. issue of GRAAT, vol. 28, 2005, pp. 11-26.
  • “Reading the Photographic Text with Lalla Romano.” Literary Texts and the Arts: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Corrado Federici and Esther Raventós-Pons, Studies in Literary Criticism and Theory 18, Lang, 2003, pp. 99-116.

Invited Talks

  • “Visual Layerings of Self: Photography in Graphic Memoir.” University of Warwick Research Seminar Series, 26 April 2017, Warwick, UK.
  • “Breaking through Borders: Migration in Comics.” Université Grenoble Alpes, 10 February 2017, Grenoble, France.
  • “Brand Command: Repetition and Coolness.” Message Control and Canadian Democracy, 21 September 2016, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
  • “Representing Illness in Graphic Medicine.” Université Grenoble Alpes, 11 May 2016, Grenoble, France.
  • “Visual Entanglements: Photography in Comics.” Humanities Research Group, University of Windsor, 15 September 2015, Windsor, Canada.
  • Opening lecture of the University of Windsor {WHY?] h[U]manities Week, 21 September 2015, Windsor, Canada.
  • “Photography, Cartooning, and Storytelling Practices.” Department of English, Université Stendhal Grenoble 3, 9 June 2015, Grenoble, France.
  • “Photography in Comics, A Happy Union in So Many Ways.” The Feminist Research Institute, in cooperation with the English Graduate Student Association and the American Literary Studies Program, University of New Mexico, 24 April 2015, Albuquerque, USA.
  • “Empty Frames: Filling in the Dots.” Department of English, Université Paul Valéry, 19 June 2012, Montpellier, France.
  • “Cartooning Ex-Posing Photography in Graphic Memoir.” Department of English, Université Stendhal Grenoble 3, 3 May 2012, Grenoble, France.
  • “Disenchanted with the Referent: Photography in Emanuele Martino's Cara fotografia.” Department of Modern Languages, 24 March 2011, Bishop's University, Canada.
  • “Focalization and Visual Perspective in the Graphic Novel” (with Dr. Silke Horstkotte). Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, 25 March 2010, Toronto, Canada.
  • “Come vedi, sono io: l'autorappresenatzione nella letteratura Italiana contemporanea.” L'Institut Culturel Italien de Montréal and the département de littératures et de langues modernes, Université de Montréal, 1 December 2009, Montreal, Canada.
  • “Unruly Portrayals of Self.” Department of English, The University of Windsor, 8 October 2009, Windsor, Canada.
  • “Photographic Silence, un geste provocateur.” International symposium, Littérature et Photographie, 22 July 2007, Cerisy-la-Salle, France.
  • “Contemporary Italian Women’s Self-Portraits: Autobiography Meets History.” The Simone de Beauvoir Institute of Montreal and the Department of Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics, 31 March 2005, Concordia University, Canada.

Conference Keynote and Plenary Talks

  • “Visual Style and Focalization.” Contemporary Narrative Theory Speakers Plenary Address, International Conference on Narrative, International Society for the Study of Narrative, 2016, Amsterdam, Holland.
  • “Towards a Telling Silence, or How Some Women Show and Tell their Selves.” The Maloney Chen Gallery and the Department of English, 2008, Central Connecticut State University, USA.
  • “Background Noise, or How Words in Photographs Confront Gender” International Conference, Debating the Difference: Gender, Representation and Self-Representation, 2007, Dundee, Scotland.

Current Research Projects

  • Negotiating Waters: Seas, Oceans and Passageways in the Colo9nial and Postcolonial Anglophone World. Co-editor: André Dodeman (Vernon Press).
  • Comics and Intermediality. Co-editor: Christopher Rowe.
  • Sexuality and Mental Illness in Comics. Co-editor: Irene Velentzas.

Other Professional Activities

Selected Conference Organization

  • Conference Co-organizer (with André Dodeman, Université Grenoble Alpes, France). “Negotiating Waters: Seas, Oceans and Passageways in the Colonial and Postcolonial Anglophone World.” International Conference, 15-16 February 2018, Université Grenoble Alpes, France.
  • Conference Organizer, “Mixing Visual Media in Comics.” International Conference, 13-16 October 2016, St. John’s, Canada.

Awards

  • International Society for the Study of Narrative 2012 prize for the best essay in Narrative for “Focalization in Graphic Narrative.”
  • Dean’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship for the Faculty of Arts (2016)

Regularly Taught Courses

Undergraduate

  • English 3843: Introduction to comics
  • English 4843: Graphic Memoir
  • English 3817: Communicating with Pictures

Graduate

  • English 7003: Trends in Contemporary Critical Theory
  • English 7085: Graphic Storytelling

Honours And Graduate Supervision

Long-form comics, photography in literature, intermedial texts, graphic memoir, autobiography