Paper short abstract:

Based on the premises of the graphic novel Lissa, this web platform explores the process and significance of translating ethnographic research into a new visual genre. The digital platform aims to outdo the standards of linear reading allowing users to navigate multiple paths of inquiry.

Paper long abstract:

Comics have a groundbreaking potential for the representation of humanistic, historical, and social perspectives on people's everyday lives Western academia is starting to integrate graphics as a legitimate means to develop and explore social theory. In Unflattening (Harvard University Press, 2015), Sousanis uses comics for a theoretical exploration of the primacy of text over image in contemporary Western academia. Graphic Medicine Manifesto (Pennsylvania State University press, 2015) is another example of how comics can convey patients' perspectives on pain, suffering and chronicity, de-mystify medical processes, and de-center biomedical authority. .

The graphic novel Lissa: Still Time is an innovative project based on the ethnographic work of Sherine Hamdy (Brown University) and Coleman Nye (Simon Fraser University), Lissa is a fictional novel based on the two academics' research on kidney failure in Egypt, and BRCA genetic testing in the US. The authors, graphic artists, and ethnographic filmmakers that are behind this project are additionally working on a digital platform that will serve for the in-depth exploration of the project's behind-the-scenes. The platform will feature born-digital and digitized components that will include archival and pedagogical materials, as well as a short film documenting the crew's ethnographic trip to Egypt.

Our aim is to make this story available to other scholars and artists who wish to embark on similar projects. The website will offer a reflection on new forms of how visual media can be integrated in academic research to expand theoretical boundaries and make academic contents accessible to a broader public.