Jena Habegger-Conti

Multimodal literacy entails an understanding of what is communicated and how in a multimodal text, but skill-based approaches often overlook aesthetic perception and affective engagement, privileging knowledge over wondering. With a dual understanding of sense as both the meaning conveyed, and the act of perceiving, I propose developing an aesthetic multimodal literacy that makes time for looking, makes space for interaction, and makes sense beyond the verbal / logical. Acknowledging Mieke Bal’s claim that ‘we have a limited view of images as visual only’ (2022: 5), sense-making with images will be explored through sight, space, sound and touch, while also being attentive to the invisible, silent, absent or ambiguous. The presentation will have implications for using multimodal texts such as picturebooks, graphic novels and films in English education in a variety of learning contexts, including intercultural learning, critical thinking and ethical awareness.

Dr Jena Habegger-Conti, Professor of English literature and culture, researches and teaches in the field of critical multimodal literacy, with a focus on ethical awareness and intercultural learning. Her recent publications include ‘Intercultural learning and images in ELT: Exploring cultural imaginaries through photographs’ (with Cecilie W. Brown, 2022) and ‘“Where am I in the text?” Standing with refugees in graphic narratives’, Children’s Literature in English Language Education 9.2. (2021). She leads the research group Researching Teacher Education, Language and Literature (RETELL) at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in Bergen, Norway, and is on the editorial board of the diamond open access journal Children’s Literature in English Language Education.

Jena has recently been appointed as Director of the Norwegian Study Centre at the University of York, UK, 2023-25.