Domagoj Brozović is an associate professor in the Department of Croatology at the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb. His main interests include comics theory, visual narrative, genres and the history of reading practices.
In the project, he develops methods for analysing comics and other forms of visual storytelling and contributes to the design of workshops, teaching materials and criteria for assessing students’ work.
Teaching and professional activities
A particular focus of his research and teaching is comics, especially the history and poetics of Croatian comics and their place in national culture. At the graduate level in Croatology, he established the course Povijest hrvatskog stripa (History of Croatian Comics), which is devoted entirely to comics.
He also delivered the public lecture “Profanity in Comics: Language, Censorship and Expressive Power”, examining the relationship between verbal and visual expression, censorship, and the distinctive ways in which comics create meaning.
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Associate Professor Domagoj Brozović teaches in the Department of Croatology at the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb. His research and teaching encompass nineteenth- and twentieth-century Croatian literature, literary theory and world literature, with particular interests in fantastic literature, contemporary theoretical approaches such as ecocriticism and new realism, and relationships between literature and other media.
The study of comics as a distinct artistic and narrative medium, as well as their connections with literature, film and popular culture, holds an important place in his work. He focuses particularly on the history and poetics of Croatian comics and their place in national culture. This approach enables the study of the different ways in which text and image work together to shape story, character, space, time and meaning.
Within IUČIP, Brozović applies his research experience to the development of methods for analysing comics and other forms of visual storytelling. He contributes to workshops and teaching materials and to the development of criteria for assessing students’ work.
His work thus supports an important aspect of the project: the study of reading that extends beyond the written literary text to include the ways students read, connect and interpret verbal and visual content.
His work on the history of Croatian comics is also important in this context. For the international publication Routledge Handbook of Global Comics, edited by Harriet E. H. Earle, Amy Matthewson and Manuela di Franco, he is preparing the chapter “From Proto-Comics to the Global Market: A Concise History of Croatian Comics”. The chapter offers a concise overview of the development of Croatian comics, from early forms of visual storytelling to their position in today’s global market. Including Croatian comics in an international publication also places them within the broader history and development of world comics.
Brozović has brought this research interest into teaching by establishing the course Povijest hrvatskog stripa (History of Croatian Comics) in the graduate Croatology programme. It is one of the few university courses in Croatia devoted entirely to comics and brings Croatian comics more systematically into the academic study of literature, culture and media. The course enables students to examine comics as an independent artistic medium and in relation to literature, film, popular culture and other forms of storytelling.
He also explored relationships between language, image and meaning in the public lecture “Profanity in Comics: Language, Censorship and Expressive Power”. Through the topics of linguistic taboo and censorship, he considered the relationship between verbal and visual expression and the ways the distinctive combination of image and text in comics contributes to the creation of meaning.
Project publications
Publication in preparation
For the international publication Routledge Handbook of Global Comics, edited by Harriet E. H. Earle, Amy Matthewson and Manuela di Franco, he is preparing the chapter “From Proto-Comics to the Global Market: A Concise History of Croatian Comics”.
