Chapter 6. Walls, doors and exciting encounters
Balkanism and its edges in Bulgarian political cartoons on European integration
In investigating the boundaries of the Balkanist discourse in pre-EU accession Bulgaria, this chapter engages with political cartoons – a genre that to this day has remained somewhat neglected by academics. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have pointed out the scant critical attention this genre has received within their respective fields of specialty (e.g. Bostdorff 1987; Dougherty 2002; Koetzle and Brunell 1996: 96; Schmitt 1992: 154; Streicher 1965: 1). Political cartooning “lies in a peculiar no man’s land where several disciplines meet” (Coupe 1969: 79) – including journalism, sociology, art history, education, cultural studies, political science and IR – but none has truly embraced its study (Diamond 2002: 252).