Bettina Egger, M.A. PhD

Bettina Egger has been a Senior Scientist at the Contemporary Art and Cultural Production program area since 2023. Her teaching and research is anchored in the field of contemporary art and popular arts, with a focus on comics and graphic literature. Other areas of focus include arts-based research, memory studies, and ecocriticism. Bettina Egger is also active as a comic book author and illustrator.

She studied fine arts and Russian at the Universities of Aix-en-Provence, Paris-Sorbonne and Rennes. In 2006, she completed her master’s degree in fine arts at the University of Rennes with a thesis on the cartography of Russian magic fairy tales and subsequently worked as a freelance comic artist in France. Bettina Egger directed various international comic projects such as Frank Zappa Comics Tribute and was a member of the associative publishing house L’Oeuf. Her artistic projects have taken her to Russia, Serbia, China and India as artist in residence. In 2018, she completed her doctoral studies with an artistic and scientific thesis entitled Comics and Memory. Oral History in the Work of Emmanuel Guibert at the Inter-University Ourganization Science and Art in Salzburg. With this work, published as a monograph by Christian A. Bachmann Verlag, she received the Roland Faelske Award for Excellence in Comics Research in 2020. In 2021-22 Bettina Egger worked as a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Alberta (Canada), teaching on the topics of comics, cultural history, and literary theory. She has a particular interest in documentary forms, memory narratives, and ecocriticism in comics. To date, she has published eleven comics in French, most recently Aramus (2022, Jarjille).

Teaching and research interests

Comics Studies, Bande Dessinée Studies and Popular Arts
Arts-based research & comics-based research
memory studies
Ecocriticism and Gender Studies

Tasks

Research and teaching on contemporary art and cultural production, with a focus on comics and popular arts
Co-editor of the eJournal p/art/icipate

Publications (selection)
COMICS

2009                No Border. Paris: Éditions du Monde Libertaire
2012                Le Dragon. Nancy: Éditions Le Moule-à-gaufres
2012                Bunker sweet bunker. Saint-Étienne: Jarjille
2013                Moscou endiablé. Nancy: Éditions Le Moule-à-gaufres
2015                Un voyage en Transsibérien. Saint-Étienne: Jarjille
2015                La Lune enrobée. Mit Adèle David. Nancy: Éditions Le Moule-à-gaufres
2016                À la recherche du monstre. Grenoble: Mosquito
2017                Tinte und Tee. Wien: Kabinett
2018                Entretien avec Emmanuel Guibert. Saint-Étienne: Jarjille
2022                Aramus. Saint-Étienne: Jarjille
2022                Armut überwinden. Die Geschichte der Volkshilfe. Mit Harald Havas und Nina Dietrich

WISSENSCHAFTLICHE MONOGRAPHIEN

2020                Comic und Erinnerung. Oral History im Werk von Emmanuel Guibert. Berlin: Christian Bachmann Verlag

SCIENTIFIC MONOGRAPHS

2017                Graphic Novel. Zur Popularisierung eines neuen Begriffs, in Zusammenarbeit mit Johanna Öttl. In: P/art/icipate, 8. http://www.p-art-icipate.net/cms/graphic-novel-zur-popularisierung-eines-neuen-begriffs/
2018                De l’interview d’auteur de bande dessinée à l’interview en bande dessinée. In: Essais, Universität Bordeaux
2018               Archives and Oral History in Emmanuel Guibert’s Le Photographe. In: Comics Memory: Archives and Styles, ed. Maaheen Ahmed & Benoît Crucifix, Palgrave 2018. Peer-reviewed Artikel.
2019                How does silence produce sounds in comics? In: https://themiddlespaces.com/2019/04/09/seeing-sounds-part-one/
2022                Influences and Transfers Between the World of Francophone BD and the World of German-speaking comics (19th to 21st c.): Introduction, in Zusammenarbeit mit Chris Reyns-Chikuma. In: The Journal of Comics & Culture, #7

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

2019                Das Innsbruck-Wimmelbuch. Innsbruck: Verlag Wagner‘sche
2020                Wimmelbuch Rotes Kreuz Innsbruck. Innsbruck: Verlag Wagner’sche
2020                Das kleine Innsbruck-Wimmelbuch. Innsbruck: Verlag Wagner’sche
2021                Das Tirol-Wimmelbuch. Innsbruck: Verlag Wagner‘sche

CO-EDITOR

2012                Rhapsode – Poésie et bande dessinée, éditions L’Œuf
2012                Frank Zappa Comics Tribute, les éditions L’Œuf
2022                The Journal of Comics & Culture, #7: Influences and Transfers Between the World of Francophone BD and the World of German-speaking comics (19th to 21st c.), together with Chris Reyns-Chikuma
2022                Alternatives francophones, spécial BD scientifique, together with Chris Reyns-Chikuma