---

Note: All panels take place in Conference G, Mezzanine of the Toronto Sheraton Centre Hotel;
Last speaker in each panel will serve as Panel Chair;
Numbers in parentheses--e.g. (349b)--are the PCA Event Numbers in the program

Wednesday, 13 March
5:00-6:30 p.m.: Morality and Contemporary Comics (8)

"Batman/Joker: The Unified Self."  Brian Burke, Clarion, PA

CANCELLED: "Watching the Watchmen:  The Apparent Impossibility of Moral Goodness." Dien Ho, Department of Philosophy, The Graduate Center, City University of New York; and Ely Rabin, Columbia Teacher's College

CANCELLED: "The Ethics of Companionship in Leviathan." Jennifer Lewin, Department of English, University of Kentucky

6:45-8:15 p.m.: Comic Art on Stage and Screen (37)

"Drag Prince in Spotlight: Theatrical Imagery in Tezuka Osamu's Early Shojo Manga." Natsu Onoda, Department of Performance
Studies, Northwestern University

"Graphic Drama: The Newest Comic Art?" Elizabeth Dyrud Lyman,  Department of English, University of Virginia

"New Light on Snow White: Art, Adaptation, and Ideology in Disney's Film." M. Thomas Inge, Blackwell Professor of the Humanities,
Randolph-Macon College

Thursday, 14 March
8:30-10:00 a.m.: Texts and Readers (66)

"Letters to Orphan Annie: Popular Interpretation of an American Pop Culture Icon." Jeet Heer, York University

"The Mood Patrol: 60s Comics and Subject Positions."  Dan C. Shoemaker, American Studies, University of New Mexico

"Mis-Reading Maus." Gene Kannenberg, Jr., Department of English, University of Connecticut

"Make Mine Mint: The Phenomemon of Comic Book Collecting."  Amy Kiste Nyberg, Dept. of Communications, Seton Hall University

12:30-2:30: Novel Superhero Narratives (124)

"What If?: DC's Crisis and Leibnizian Possible Worlds." Jeff McLaughlin, Department of Philosophy, History and Politics, University College of the Cariboo

"The WildC.A.Ts/Aliens crossover: The Origin Story that Never Happened." Geoff Klock, English Department, The University of Texas at Austin

"Writing on The Wall: Simultaneous Background Narrative in Marshall Law ." Mike Hart, English Dept., University of Tennessee

"Keys to the Kingdom." A. David Lewis, English Department, Georgetown University

2:30-4:00 p.m.: Presentation and Form (153)

"Archiving the Present: Strategies of Representation and Display in Art Spiegelman's Maus."  Elisabeth Friedman, Social & Political
Thought, York University, Toronto; Visiting Scholar, Dept. of Rhetoric, UC Berkely

"New Explorations in Forms & Formats of Sequential Art."  Ellen Vartanoff, Rockville MD

"Compositional Elements of Comics." Taylor Ellwood, Clarion University

"Anything Can Happen In a Comic Strip?: Comics, Form, and the Art of Nothingness."  Peter R. Sattler, Department of English, Lakeland College

4:30-6:00 p.m.: Superheroes & Difference (182)

CANCELLED: "A Fanonian Interpretation of The Punisher ."  James Papoutsis, English, Stong College

"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Amazon: Wonder Woman Goes Redhead."  Nicole Freim, English Department, University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee

"Supercrip: Disability and the Superhero."  Jose Alaniz, University of California at Berkeley

"'Why Have You Allowed Me to See You Without Your Mask?': Captain America #133 and the Great American (Protest) Novel."  Brian Cremins, Department of English, University of Connecticut

6:30-7:30 p.m.: Comic Art & Comics Area Meeting (203b)

Moderator: Gene Kannenberg, Jr., U Connecticut, English. Please join us for the presentation of the "M. Thomas Inge Award for Comics Scholarship" and the vote for a new Area Chair, as well as for discussion of other Area business.

Friday, 15 March
8:30-10:00 a.m.: Society and Politics (211)

CANCELLED: "Baptiste and the Great Depression: Political Caricature and Cartoons in Quebec in the 1930s." Pierre Skilling, Sociology, Université Laval (Québec)

"Nostalgia, Comic Books, & the 'War Against Crime!'"  Jarret S. Lovell, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University

"Abel Quezada and El Fisgón: Critical Perceptions of the Socio-Economic and Political Aspects of Mexican Reality through Cartoons."  Ana Merino, Department of Foreign Languages, Appalachian State University

"Targeting the Cosmos: Expanding the Definition(s) of Satire for Twentieth Century Comic Strips."  Kerry Soper.  Dept. of Humanities, Classics and Comp. Lit., Brigham Young University

10:30-12:00 p.m.: Creators and Content (240)  NOTE: This time has been corrected on this page; the conference booklet is correct

"Art Spiegelman's Maus: Allegory-Identity-Survival."  Ray Hsu, Department of English University of Toronto

CANCELLED: "Marginal but Immemorable: Lynda Barry's Indelible Characterisations." Miriam Harris, School of Design, Unitec Institute of Technology

CANCELLED: The Many Faces of Violence as Seen in Chantal Montellier's Works." Nhu-Hoa Nguyen, Programme de doctorat en sémiologie, Université du Québec à Montréal

8:00-9:00 p.m., Friday, 15 March: SPECIAL EVENT: Thierry Groensteen on "The Building of The Cage " (349b)

The Comic Art & Comics Area is proud to present Thierry Groensteen, one of Europe's most respected comics critics.  He
will speak on Martin Vaughn-James' The Cage, an important avant-garde "visual novel" published in Toronto in 1975.  This fascinating work has had a wide-ranging critical fortune in Europe and is regarded as a keystone in modern visual narrative. Having studied the notebooks and drafts of the artist, Groensteen will propose a new look at this innovative book. 

Thierry Groensteen served as the director of the Angoulême Comics Museum (CNBDI ) from 1993 to March 2001, and earlier as the editor of the influential French journal of comics criticism, Cahiers de la Bande Dessinée . He has written extensively on comic art for many years in Europe; his recent publications include Systèm de la Bande Dessinée (Presses Universitaires de France, 1999), and English essays published in Forging a New Medium: The Comic Strip in the Nineteenth Century (VUB UP, 1998; on Rodolphe Töpffer), and in International Journal of Comic Art (vol 2. No. 2, 2000; on Gustave Doré).  You can read more about his work at: http://www.mediadesk.com.fr/groensteen .

Please join us for this special opportunity to learn about a significant, locally published work from an influential international scholar.

The talk will be introduced by Daniel Longo, Cultural Attaché at the French Consulate in Toronto.  Thierry Groensteen's visit is made possible by the kind support of the Consulate General of France in Toronto , in conjunction with the Popular Culture Association.  

Saturday, 16 March
8:30-10:00 a.m.: Comic Book Production and History (358)

"The Comic Book Battleground of the Cold War."  Mark Alpert, City College New York

"The Places that Wonder Woman, Blackjack, and Iron Man in Common." Stanford W. Carpenter, Rice University; Researcher at the Friends Research Institute

CANCELLED: "Understanding Production: The Stylistic Impact of Artisan and Industrial Methods."  Mark C. Rogers, Chair, Division of Communication and Fine Arts, Walsh University

"The World of Tomorrow:  From Flushing Meadows to Four Colors." Randy Duncan, Henderson State University

12:30-2:00 p.m.: Creators in Context (416)

"Fantastic Fascism? Jack Kirby, Nazi Aesthetics and Klaus Theweleit's Male Fantasies."  Craig Fischer, Department of
English, Appalachian State University

"Locating Joss Whedon's Fray; or the Comic and Literary Context for Whedon's Futuristic Vampire Slayer." Michael Eberle-Sinatra, Departement d'etudes anglaises, Universite de Montreal

"'It's Not the House I Lived In': Seth's Comics and the Problem of Nostalgia." Charles Hatfield, English, California State University, Northridge

"Defining the Field of European Comics Production: The Case of Lewis Trondheim." Bart Beaty, Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary

2:30-4:00 p.m.: Questions of Identity (443)

"From the Closet to World Domination: Identity Politics and The Uncanny X-Men."  Kelley J. Hall, Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN  46135

"Chinese Cartoons in Singapore - Images of Politics, Polarity and Plurality." Lim Cheng Tju, Department of History, National University of Singapore

"Resurrecting the Nation Through the Eyes of a Native: The Case of Turey el Taíno."  Héctor D. Fernández L'Hoeste, Dept. of Modern & Classical Languages, Georgia State University

"Eating the Other (Out): Lesbian Commix and the Politics and Representation of Food Consumption." Sarah Lewis, Department of English/American Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Back to Main Page