Publication of the opening lecture by Pr Benoît Peeters

Benoît Peeters

A new art : comics

" As both a witness and an actor, over the past forty years I have seen the landscape of comics undergo a profound transformation, as has the discourse surrounding them. "

For decades, comics had no name, no history. Associated with childhood and entertainment, they were published on ephemeral media and rarely made it into books. Initially prized by collectors nostalgic for the joys of childhood, it gradually gained in readership, then prestige. Benoît Peeters reconstructs the history of a long-discredited genre and analyzes the evolution of the discourse around it, offering us an insider's view of the processes that led to the recognition of the ninth art.

Peeters B., Un art neuf : la bande dessinée, Paris, Collège de France/Fayard, coll. " Leçons inaugurales ",^no 313, mars 2023, 88 p.

ISBN : 978-2-213-72551-2
Price : 12 €
Publication :15  mars 2023

Benoît Peeters is a writer, scriptwriter and biographer of Hergé, Paul Valéry and Jacques Derrida. A theorist and critic, he is the author of numerous essays on comics, screenwriting and collaborative writing. With cartoonist François Schuiten, he created the Citésobscures cycle in 1983, which has been translated worldwide. He is a guest professor at the Collège de France, where he holds the annual Artistic creation chair in 2022-2023, with the support of the Centre national du livre.