Jennifer Nagtegaal is a PhD candidate in Hispanic Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she likewise completed a master’s degree in Hispanic Studies in 2016. She recently served a three-year term as the elected Student Representative to the Asociación Canadiense de Hispanistas (2021-23). Jennifer’s research, funded by the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), develops at the crossroads of cultural studies and contemporary Hispanic visual culture in the areas of comics studies and animation studies, and sometimes at the intersection of both.

Jennifer’s first book, Politically Animated: Non-Fiction Animation from the Hispanic World (2023), was recently published with University of Toronto Press. Politically Animated offers the first book-length study on animated non-fiction from the Spanish-speaking world. There is a particular focus on the ideological implications of choosing specific techniques and styles of animation within certain socio-historical and cultural contexts. A sub-focus explores the convergences between comics art and animation.

Jennifer has also published a number of essays on Hispanic comics and animation in high-ranking journals such as the Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies and the Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, and in edited volumes such as The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies.

Jennifer has worked as a part-time sessional instructor of Spanish, as a graduate research assistant (GRA) and graduate teaching assistant (GTA), and graduate academic assistant (GAA). She is also currently working on her dissertation, titled “Comic Futures in Art Practices of the Present.”

Interests

• Contemporary Peninsular Literature and Culture
• Comics Studies (from the “graphic novel” to the “post-comic”)
• Spanish Film Studies
• Animated Documentary
• Spanish Golden-Age literature (Picaresque and Cervantine Studies)
• Second Language Teaching and Learning

Books:

Politically Animated: Non-Fiction Animation from the Hispanic World. 337 pages. University of Toronto Press.

“A pioneering and highly innovative study of Iberian and Latin American animation. Nagtegaal’s compelling analyses explore the art form’s political dimensions in depth while maintaining a dialogue with studies of media, film, and comics.” (Peer Review)

Journal Publications:

“Comics Criticism from Within: Metatextual Musings on Comics and Cognitive Disability in Paco Roca and Miguel Gallardo’s Emotional World Tour: diarios itinerantes (2009)” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 99.4 (2022): 347-371. https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2022.23

“Animation and Affirmative Aging in Ignacio Ferreras’ Arrugas (2011).” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 44, no.2 (2021): 437-462. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27081400

“Biographical Comics As Scholarship? The Case of Salvador Dalí and the ‘Dalí Renaissance’”. Bulletin of Spanish Studies 98, no.8 (2021): 1313-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/14753820.2021.1956172

Book Chapters:

“Animated Documentary and Comics Art: from Adaptation to Assimilation.” In Encyclopedia of Animation Studies: Techniques, Processes, Environments, edited by Alla Gadassik and Franziska Bruckner. Bloomsbury. Expected publication summer 2024.

“From Confinement to Catharsis: Reading the Comics Aesthetic in Manuel H. Martín’s Documentary 30 años de oscuridad/30 Years of Darkness (Spain, 2012).” In Comics and Catharsis: Exploring Narratives of Trauma and Memory in the Graphic Novel, edited by Jordan Tronsgard, University of Mississippi Press. Forthcoming.

“From ‘Accidental’ Autobiography to Comics Activism: Tracing the Development of an Andalusian-Chinese Feminism in the Work of Comics Artist Quan Zhou.” In The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, Routledge, 2020, pp. 134-148.

Invited Reviews:

“Review of Mise en scène, Acting, and Space in Comics by Geraint D’Arcy,” Studies in Comics. (2022) Forthcoming.

“Illustrating Erasure: A Review of Enriqueta Zafra and Jesús Mora’s Lazarillo de Tormes. A Graphic Novel.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. (2022) Forthcoming.

Other Reviews:

“Review of Leen Engelen and Kris Van Heuckelom’s European Cinema After the Wall: Screening East-West Mobility,” Independent Humanities, vol. 33, no. 1, 2016, pp. 187-190.

Other Publications:

Nagtegaal, Jennifer et. al. “Cross-cultural translation, adaptation, and reliability of the Spanish version of the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire for Everyone (PAR-Q+),” The Health & Fitness Journal of Canada, vol. 12, no. 4, 2019, pp. 3-14.

“Creating a Culture of Life Long Learners”. El Tribuno Del Pueblo. Jan – Feb, no. 6, 2014.

“El Aprendizaje Permanente”. El Tribuno del Pueblo, no. 7, Jan – Feb, 2014.

2018-2022: UBC Four Year Fellowship (FYF)

2018-2021: Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate  Scholarship – 3 year Doctoral. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

2015-2016: Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Master’s Scholarship – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

2014-2016: Faculty of Arts Graduate Award – University of British Columbia

Graduate supervisor: Dr. María Soledad Fernández Utrera

Invited Talks:

2021 “Comics x Art: Exploring Demands on the Body when Comics Open Up to the other Arts” UBC MOA Visual & Material Culture Seminar Series, University of British Columbia, November 18, 2021.

Other Talks:

2022 “Comics Anthropomorphized” LVIII Annual Congress of the Canadian Association of Hispanists (CAH), Toronto and Online, June 2-5, 2022.

2022 “Of Blobs and Lines and (New) Horizons: Tracing the Art-Comics-Museum Relationship in Max’s La línea (2019)”at the FHIS Graduate Student Symposium, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. May 13, 2022.

2020 “Constructing Bicultural Identity through Comics and Cuisine: Quan Zhou’s Sweet and Sour Gazpacho (Gazpacho agridulce)”. 157th Modern Languages Association Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington, USA. January 9-12, 2020.

2019 “Paco Roca’s El juego lúgubre: (Re)Framing Salvador Dalí’s return to Franco-era Spain”. Eighth Biennial International Graduate Student Conference, Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies, University of British Columbia. October 25-26, 2019.

2019 “Animating Agency: Children’s Politics in Jairo Carrillo and Oscar Andrade’s Pequeñas voces”. Poster Presentation at the Sixth International Symposium on Ideology, Politics and Demands in Spanish/Italian Language, Literature and Film, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy. June 26-28, 2019.

2019 “Salvador Dalí and the Bio Comic”. LV Annual Congress of the Canadian Association of Hispanists (CAH), University of British Columbia, Vancouver. June 4-6, 2019.

2018 “Picaresque Drawing: Gutters, Margins and the Unfinished Aesthetic in the Comic Adaptation of El Guitón Honofre (1604, 2005).” 116th Annual Conference of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association. November 9-11, 2018.

2018 “Towards a Definition of Picaresque Drawing: the Comic Adaptation of El Guitón Honofre (1604, 2005).” Poster presentation at the FHIS Graduate Student Symposium, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. April 16, 2018.

2016 “To Engulf an Empire: Cannibalism and Translatio Imperii in La Numancia.” Early Romance Studies Research Cluster, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. December 1, 2016.

2015 “Old Age: A Liminal Space? Ignacio Ferrera’s Arrugas.” Sixth Biennial Graduate Student Conference, Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies, University of British Columbia. October 23-24, 2015.

2015 “José Arcadio Buendía: ¿El caballero andante de García Márquez?” Sixth Latin America Research Group Workshop, Victoria. March 14, 2015.

2014 “De cuyo nombre no quiero olvidarme: los nombres en Don Quijote de la Mancha.” The Second Annual Department of French, Italian and Spanish Undergrad Colloquium, The University of Calgary, Calgary. April 30, 2014.