International conference, October 7 and 8, 2026, in Brussels, and October 12 and 13, 2026, in Paris.
Introduction
His eternal youth gives no hint of it, but in January 2029, Tintin will celebrate his 100th birthday. Hergé left behind a body of work whose impact remains remarkably alive today in comic book culture and the collective imagination. Embodying the mystique of adventure, Tintin has become a major figure in contemporary mythology.
From his very inception, through a process of borrowing from and contributing to other artists, his influence on the evolution and renewal of the comic book genre has illustrated the narrative and aesthetic power of Hergé’s project. Scholarly analysis of his work is gaining ever greater prominence in the humanities. Amid a constant stream of new editions, reprints, and translations, the cultural and media reception of The Adventures of Tintin extends far beyond the scholarly circles of Tintinology. Scholars continue to explore its philosophical, political, social, and aesthetic meanings through publications and conferences that demonstrate the resounding success of the critical engagement with Hergé.
A popular icon like so many other figures from the literary or cinematic imagination, a character evoking nostalgia for the golden age of comics, and the subject of an intense tradition of parody that illustrates its cultural vitality, Tintin is a familiar figure on city walls, in advertising, in the cinema, in the extreme commodification of merchandise, but also in many contemporary comics that intensify critical or laudatory references to Hergé’s body of work—whether to distance themselves from it or to align with it.
Three years before Tintin’s centennial, centered on Hergé’s body of work and viewed through the rigorous lens of its most recent exegesis, this international conference aims to explore the prominent place and significance of the work in the 21st century as a visual construct of social imaginaries. The Cultures of Tintin: a contemporary approach to revisiting Hergé’s work, placing it in the context of its aesthetic uses, its sociocultural reappropriations, and its centrality in the world of comics.
Organizing Committee: Patrice Guérin (ADH); Jacques Langlois (ADH); Pierre Marlet (RTBF); Fabrice Preyat (ULB); Olivier Roche (ADH); Jean-Louis Tilleuil (UCLouvain / ULille)
Scientific Committee: Philippe Delisle (ULyon); Laurent Déom (ULille); Jean Leclercq (UCLouvain / Collège Belgique); William Marx (Collège de France); Renaud Nattiez (author, *Les Amis de Hergé*); Benoît Peeters (screenwriter, writer); Michel Porret (University of Geneva); Fabrice Preyat (ULB); Tomasz Swoboda (University of Gdańsk); Jean-Louis Tilleuil (UCLouvain / ULille).
Partners and Support: Collège Belgique of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Fine Arts of Belgium; Collège de France; FNRS Contact Group “Research on Text-Image Relations”; National Fund for Scientific Research/FNRS-FRS; INCAL Institute (UCLouvain); Center for Literary and Theater Studies (INCAL); University of Lille; ULB; Le Conservateur Corporate Foundation; City of Brussels / Visit Brussels; Les Amis de Hergé (non-profit organization); Reading, Learning, and Studying with Images and Text (non-profit organization).
