BASF Lecture, ‘Cartoon Connections: Anglo-German Relations and the Culture of Visual Satire in the 19th Century’

Online, Wednesday 1 May 2024, 3.30pm to 4.30am AEST

This paper explores the depiction of Germany and the Germans in ‘British World’ satire during the 19th century. Focusing on the period between the 1860s and 1914, the paper merges the metropolitan British image of Germany with those produced in the satirical magazines of the British Empire, including Ireland and the Australasian colonies and beyond. This provides a broader overview of cartoonists’ attitudes than previously available via my own work, and the work of Jost Rebentisch (2000) and others. Cartoonists of all ideological persuasions were given license by their editors and proprietors to essentialise a complex relationship and set of attitudes; often concentrating in images of Bismarck, Wilhelm II, or an imagined personification of Germany or stereotypical German, the supposed ‘national character’ of the Reich.

Further information and registration