The Making of 1177 BC: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed
A talk by Glynnis Fawkes.
How does a cartoonist go about adapting a work of history, specifically Eric H. Clineâs 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed? In this talk Fawkes will describe the process of interpreting Clineâs text in comics, an exercise during which she repeatedly asked herself how she might tell this story visually. Through page compositions and dramatizations in which historical figures (such as Ramses III) speak, she imagined characters for whom we have no record offering commentary and opinions. To guide the narrative, she introduced two new young characters, Pel (of the Sea Peoples) and Shesha, (an Egyptian scribe) who ask the central question of the book: Why after three prosperous centuries did the civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age suddenly come to an end?
Glynnis Fawkes is the co-author with Eric H Cline and illustrator of 1177 BC: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton University Press). She is also the author-illustrator of Charlotte BrontĂ« before Jane Eyre (Little, Brown)and Persephoneâs Garden (Secret Acres), among other books, and her comics have appeared on the website of The New Yorker. She has worked as an archaeological illustrator around the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean and teaches at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont.
Sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America and Reed's department of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies. Free and open to the public.