This event will take place Friday, December 1, 2023, from 11:00-11:50 a.m. in BS3 1200 (please note the room change!)
*A book signing for HumCore students will follow: 12:00-12:30 p.m. in HIB 185*
Please join Humanities Core for a conversation with professor, author, graphic novelist, curator, Harvard Fellow, Hugo Award winner, New York Times Bestseller, 2018 Eisner Winner, and all-around champion of Black culture John Jennings as part of our exploration of his graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Jennings will share insights into his scholarship and the creative process of adapting Butler’s work into graphic novels.
As Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside (UCR), John Jennings examines the visual culture of race in various media forms including film, illustrated fiction, and comics and graphic novels. He is the illustrator of the graphic novel adaptations of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents, and Kindred with Damian Duffy. He is also the director of Abrams ComicArts imprint Megascope, which publishes graphic novels focused on the experiences of people of color. Jennings is co-editor of the 2016 Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (Rutgers) and co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. He is co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University.