Brett Sterling, World Languages Associate Professor of German, Receives SEC Faculty Grant

Brett Sterling, associate professor of German, received an SEC Faculty Grant to present new research at the University of Georgia. Sterling was invited by Esra Santesso to present from his paper “German-African Encounters: Postcolonial Exploitation, Examination, and Exchange in German-Language Comics” next March.

Sterling will present an overview of Germany’s visual repertoire of African stereotypes and provide a comparative analysis of recent comics by German, Swiss, Austrian and Congolese artists. 

The SEC Faculty Travel Grant program aims to foster relationships that stimulate collaboration between SEC member universities relative to exchanging ideas, developing grant proposals, presenting lectures, conducting research and delivering performances.  

From Sterling: 

Drawing on my research on race and representation in comics, this talk will illuminate how Germany’s colonial history remains largely unexamined, while contemporary artists have begun to interrogate how “Africa” is viewed and depicted in German-speaking media. While at the University of Georgia, I will also engage with students in a Comics and Graphic Narratives course to discuss comics’ political and ethical capacities, as well as working with colleagues to develop an SEC Comics Studies network. I hope also to give a talk at the Goethe-Zentrum in Atlanta while I am in Georgia.  

Sterling has also been selected to represent the university in the federal competition for a National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Stipend. The NEH Summer Stipend aims to stimulate new research in the humanities and its publication by providing funding for full-time work on projects during the summer months. Sterling is applying to support his current book project, Contemporary German-language Comics: A History, which is under contract with The Ohio State University Press. Sterling describes this project as follows:

Over the last 20 years, there has been an explosion of compelling and challenging comic art in German-speaking Europe. Within Germany, however, there is the persistent belief among some that domestic comics are inferior to those from the U.S., France/Belgium and Japan, while outside of Central Europe, German-language comics are virtually unknown. This has resulted in a dual problem in comics scholarship: scholars within German-speaking Europe mostly overlook domestic production, while those on the outside are largely unaware of it.  

German-language comics encompass a wealth of aesthetically and thematically rich works deserving of a wider audience, including historical comics on the Holocaust or the former East Germany, works of graphic medicine addressing neurodiversity and disability, journalistic exposés on political extremism, and autobiographical explorations of identity and belonging by Turkish- and Viet-Germans, Korean-Austrians and queer and trans artists throughout the region.   

My book will be the first comprehensive history of German-language comics from the 1970s to the present in any language, filling an immense gap in comics scholarship and opening this vibrant artistic landscape to an English-speaking audience for the first time.  

For more information on Sterling’s research interests and publications, visit his UARK faculty profile.

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.