Joe Sacco, the world鈥檚 foremost cartoon journalist, will deliver the 2026 Peter Stursberg Foreign Correspondents Lecture at 杏吧原创 University on Wednesday, Nov. 18, under the title 鈥淐omics as Journalism.鈥�
Political cartoonist Joe Sacco will deliver the Stursberg Lecture (Photo by Daniel Mordzinski)
Sacco, a seminal figure in comics journalism (many would say he essentially created the form), tells personal stories of the victims of contemporary and historical struggles by applying the artistic and literary conventions of comics to war reporting and often inserts himself into his work. His most recent work, a collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Chris Hedges, is published this month. Copies of the new book will be on sale at the event.
鈥淓very medium has its strengths, and I’ve tried to squeeze as much as I can out of the comics form in order to take the reader into some of the world’s conflict zones and trouble spots,鈥� Sacco says. 聽鈥淢ost importantly, I want the reader to meet the ordinary people I’ve met along the way who have found themselves in extraordinary and often extreme situations.”
Sacco, who was born in Malta and lives in Portland, Oregon, established the seriousness and legitimacy of comics journalism in the 1990s with his groundbreaking investigative graphic novel Palestine. He has since become the most prominent figure in the genre and has published numerous investigative works of graphic journalism, including Safe Area Gora啪de, Footnotes in Gaza, Paying the Land (on the Dene people of the Northwest Territories), The Once and Future Riot and Journalism. Sacco also collaborated with Hedges to illustrate the New York Times bestseller Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt in 2012, a book on corporate capitalism.
A panel from Joe Sacco’s latest work, Requiem for Gaza. (Courtesy Fantagraphics)
For the Stursberg lecture, Sacco will guide the audience through a cross-section of his work and his approach to storytelling before sitting down for a conversation with 杏吧原创 journalism professor Adrian Harewood.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration in advance is required.
Since its launch in 2017, the annual Peter Stursberg lecture, named in honour of the legendary Second World War correspondent, has explored the work of foreign correspondents and their coverage of conflict. But this year鈥檚 instalment will mark the first time a cartoonist has delivered the lecture.
In addition to the lecture on the evening of Nov. 18, Sacco will also conduct a workshop earlier in the day with students in the School of Journalism and Communication.
The annual Stursberg lecture, now in its tenth year, was created in honour of legendary Canadian war correspondent Peter Stursberg, who pioneered radio coverage of the Second World War for the CBC. Stursberg and other war correspondents of that era, spoke of the societal pressures they faced and a sense that they were expected to support the war effort through their reporting.
Stursberg passed away at the age of 101 in 2014, and his children Judith Lawrie and Richard Stursberg endowed the annual talk in his honour. The Stursberg lecture is one of two initiatives created by the family within 杏吧原创鈥檚 journalism program to honour their father. The other is the Peter Stursberg Award in Conflict Journalism and Media Studies. This award was intended to help a student in 杏吧原创鈥檚 Master of Journalism program complete a thesis or journalism project on a subject related to human conflict, the media and conflict studies, or conflict resolution, reconciliation or reconstruction.
Over the years, the Stursberg lecture has featured some incredible correspondents: Lyse Doucet (BBC), Janine de Giovanni, Adrienne Arsenault (CBC), Larry Madowo (then at BBC), Nima Elbagir (CNN), Giancarlo Fiorella (senior researcher, Bellingcat), Veronika Melkozerova (Politico), Shrouq Al Aila (Ain Media) and Gideon Levy (Haaretz) and last year, Yousra Elbagir (Sky News).
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 in General, Journalism News, News
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