I spent the first half of this year in the USA as a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the University of Oregon. I cannot tell you how privileged I feel for having been given this grant and the opportunity to immerse myself into the world of comics.
I read a lot of comics and thought a lot about comics and design, which were the central keywords of my research proposal. It is such a great feeling to sit in a library, have all the best secondary literature brought to you thanks to interlibrary loan, and to think, read, find new connections. I have some drafts for future papers (I hope I will have the time to write them!) and future talks. The first talk is upcoming at the end of the month, when I will talk about female bodies in contemporary Hungarian comics at the Graphic Medicine conference of ComFor (the German society for comics studies) in Groeningen.
The best part of my Fulbright stay was having the time to experiment with bringing thinking about comics and making comics together. This has already been a key element of my book, Comics and the Body, which –oh God! –was published 4 years ago already, but making comics scholarship as comics has become the only kind of scholarship I am interested in now that it seems that I will continue existing as a freelance scholar free of the burden of institutional expectations. In Oregon I made several comics, some are very meta and reflect on what comics is or what it can be. I have also had the chance to learn image-making techniques that I have always wanted to try out, such as screenprinting and linocut. Thinking with the material has been important for me for a while, and I am looking forward to incorporating further material irregularities in my future scholarship.
I have been invited to give a talk on Hungarian comics at the University of Washington, and I learned a lot at a Fulbright Conference on climate change in Fort Collins.
The Pacific Northwest is by far my favorite part of Earth, and I enjoyed every minute of hiking, driving, and snowboarding. I met some interesting and amazing people! I am grateful for the frendship of Ashley, Gen, Katie, Andrea, Omar, Mattie, Gail, Attila, Charles, José, Jutka, Albena, Anu, Gowri, and Kate!
Here are some photos mostly of Oregon. Thank you, Fulbright Hungary.
Eszter Szép 