Abstract
This interdisciplinary dissertation develops the “translator-function,” a horizontal, rhizomatic paradigm that dismantles traditional hierarchies subordinating translation and adaptation to the status of secondary, derivative echoes of an absolute original. Drawing on Roland Barthes’s anti-authorial textuality and Michel Foucault’s discourse analysis, this project analyzes translations and adaptations adjacent to the pluridisciplinary medium of French-language comics, or bande dessinée (BD), to investigate how cultural mediation reconfigures narrative form. Because graphic narratives rely on an inescapable tension between textual code and the static visual space of the page, they materialize the hidden infrastructure of cultural transmission in ways traditional prose cannot. Tracing this mechanism across three distinct registers, the study examines elemental adaptation in Stéphane Betbeder and Djief’s prequel Liaisons dangereuses: Préliminaires; the transmedial reconceptualization of Émile Zola’s naturalism in Cédric Simon and Éric Stalner’s BD adaptation of La Curée; and the internal translation mechanics of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s Astérix chez les Bretons and its consequences for subsequent English translation. Ultimately, the translator-function reclaims the shared interpretive agency of authors, translators, and adapters along a fluid, horizontal continuum of cultural circulation. By resisting market-driven, utilitarian definitions, this framework provides the epistemological vocabulary required to valorize the labor of creative translators, challenge Anglocentric market biases, and reframe narrative interpretation as a dynamic, democratic ecosystem of cultural memory.
Committee Chair
Seth Graebner
Committee Members
E. Joe Johnson; Ignacio Infante; Nathan Dize; Tili Boon Cuillé
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Author's Department
French Language and Literature
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
8-4-2026
Language
English (en)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/5skg-bh12
Recommended Citation
Gomez, Ryan Christopher, "The Translator-Function: Transmedial Agency in the Circulation of Francophone Graphic Literature" (2026). Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations. 3851.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/5skg-bh12