CFP: "The Arts and the Public"; NEASA Conference (4/9; 10/1-3/10)

Note that this CFP mentions graphic novels...

CFP:
The Arts and the Public
New England American Studies Association
Annual Conference
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA
October 1-3, 2010

The New England American Studies Association welcomes proposals for its 2010 conference on "The Arts and the Public," to be held at the Massachusetts Historical Society, October, 1-3, 2010. Proposals for papers, panels, workshops, and other forms of presentation will be accepted at neasacouncil@gmail.com through April 9, 2010. Proposals are limited to 300 words. NEASA welcomes proposals from across the disciplines, from primary/secondary as well as higher ed, from artists as well as scholars, and from outside the academy as well as within. More information is available at www.neasa.org.

The relationship between the arts and the public has always been both contentious and celebrated in American life. From debates over the propriety of early American novels to present-day attacks on public-arts funding, from nineteenth-century responses to abolitionist literature to controversial post-9/11 representations of Muhammad, the link between the artistic and civic has long generated suspicion and argument. At the same time, the arts are frequently understood as an essential component of an education in democratic citizenship and have throughout the twentieth century been supported by the state. Indeed, the establishment and institutionalization of American Studies itselfowes a great deal to such state sponsorship. It is clear that the arts interpellate, just as they also help construct new publics - new collectivities based on race, gender, sexuality, and other orientations - that challenge dominant values of the public. The histories of social and identity movements are also the histories of art and aesthetics.

In inviting proposals for papers, panels, workshops, and presentations on this topic, NEASA conceives of "the arts" and "the public" very broadly. We welcome work on the visual, literary, print, (new) media, performance, photographic, musical, cinematic, plastic, fine, and popular arts, as well as material culture, industrial arts, kitsch, built environments, architecture, and folklore. We hope for papers and panels on public policy, public funding, Public History, Public Humanities, public art, public education, public sphere theory, and counterpublics. Papers may even challenge the very idea of "the arts" and "the public." Participants may address the topic historically, theoretically, politically. We are interested in the work of practitioners as well as scholars, of visual and performance artists as well as those who work with the arts in public institutions.

Additional fields and objects of engagement might include:

• Black Arts Movement
• Blacklists
• The New Deal and WPA
• Native-American arts
• Arts and the border
• Transnational arts
• Documentary
• Histories of public art
• Folk art and folklore
• Publication and circulation
• Privatization of publishing
• Free publishing
• New Media and the public sphere
• Popular music
• Copyright, patent, and intellectual property
• Open Source and open access
• Open universities
• Secondary Education and the Arts
• NEA
• Culture fronts
• Relational aesthetics
• Queer film, zines, poetry, fiction, performance . . .
• Art of the book
• Graphic novels
• Illustration
• Religious iconography
• On-line learning
• American Studies and the public
• The history of American Studies and other disciplines
• The crisis in the humanities
• Cultural tourism
• Art markets and criticism
• Private/public splits
• Questions of cultural identity and the public sphere
• Citizenship and the arts
• The neoliberal notion of culture
• Controversies and censorship
• Education and pedagogy
• Culture wars
• Public funding of the arts
• Sociology of literature and art
• The intersection of the aesthetic and the political
• Museum studies
• Democracy and the arts

neasacouncil@gmail.com
www.neasa.org

CFP: Contemporary Comics (March 25; May 21)

CFP:
CONTEMPORARY COMICS
artists, current themes and contexts

University of Copenhagen, Denmark
21 May 2010

This academic conference is presented in collaboration with Copenhagen's comics biennial, the international comics festival komiks.dk in Øksnehallen, Copenhagen, 22-23 May.

As an independent part of the festival's programme, it aims to present the status of international research in contemporary comics both to an academic and a general audience, and will form part of a broader range of programming in the city in the days surrounding the festival, celebrating comics and comics culture.

Contributions might be within the following subjects, but we welcome other suggestions:

• Comics / politics / society
• Aesthetic movements
• Contemporary artists: mainstream and independent
• Publication platforms: from book publishing to the internet
• The future of comics

Presentations will be 20 minutes long. Speakers will be given free pass to the komiks.dk festival and access to the Friday night VIP award show. Confirmed artists are: Dave Gibbons, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns and Frank Quitely. The festival's programme is available at www.komiks.dk. An artist's talk involving one or more of the visiting artists is being planned, so contributions about or including works of the above mentioned artists will be given priority.

Abstracts of approximately 250 words and a short biographical text of maximum 100 words should be sent by 25 March to Rikke Platz Cortsen at rpc@hum.ku.dk along with any general enquiries.

Please visit our website at: http://contemporarycomics.ikk.ku.dk which will be updated regularly.

Call for Papers: 'Surrealism, Science Fiction, and Comic Books' (n.d.; 1/22/11)

Call for Papers:
'Surrealism, Science Fiction,
and Comic Books'
The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
22 January 2011

In his 1976 essay ‘Science Fiction and Allied Literature,’ David Ketterer wrote ‘it is rather surprising that the considerable affinity which exists between Surrealism and SF has not attracted more attention.’ This observation was repeated in 1997 by Roger Bozzetto and Arthur B. Evans, who lamented that the relations between Surrealism and science fiction ‘continue to be largely unexplored in SF scholarship,’ and that ‘there currently exists no in-depth study of SF and Surrealism.’ The points of contact and areas of overlap, along with the influences, differences, and antagonisms that lie between Surrealism, science fiction, and the related literature of the comic book will be explored in this conference to be held 22 January 2011 at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Such observations take on extra force when we consider Surrealism’s historical context, along with its literary and pictorial culture. Emerging in France between the two world wars, it was well positioned to receive the writings of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells that initiated and defined the genre boundaries of early science fiction, along with the popularisation of the fourth dimension and the advent of the Theory of Relativity that such literature drew upon, whilst the writings of Alfred Jarry, Franz Kafka, and Raymond Roussel gave them a related comic, absurd, or fantastic perspective on the machine and technology. Indeed, Roussel’s boundless admiration for Verne was equalled by the similar veneration felt for Roussel by Marcel Duchamp and Roberto Matta, expressed in their art between 1912 and the 1940s. Furthermore, one of the most important figures in early French SF (and now almost forgotten), Jacques Spitz, was close to the Surrealists in the 1930s, and his books of the interwar years show a marked Surrealist tendency. In the 1940s, Matta’s work was affected more specifically by the worlds described in science fiction and also by comic books, which were a significant discovery for André Breton and the Surrealists in New York. Important to René Magritte’s art in the 1940s, comic books were also a key popular form for postwar Surrealism in Europe and America.

Because barely any scholarship exists on how far the art and writings of Surrealists in the forties and since were affected by SF and comic books, it is expected that postwar art and writings will form a significant strand of this conference (for instance, the writings of Malcolm de Chazal were described by their English translator as ‘science fictions’), as will the investigation of how the project to expand reality proposed by Surrealism in its imagery and poetry was extended by important SF writers such as Stanislaw Lem and J.G. Ballard, as well as for related novelists like Jorge Luis Borges, Alan Burns, and Thomas Pynchon.

Potential areas of exploration are:

• Surrealism, SF, and the imagery of spiritualism
• The comic book as a subversive accomplice of Surrealism
• Surrealism, physics, and fiction
• The spaces of Surrealist painting and the SF imagination
• Legacies of Surrealism in contemporary comic books
• The fourth dimension in Surrealism, modernism, and SF
• Surrealist and SF geographies
• The Gothic imagination in Surrealism, SF, and comics
• Futurity in Surrealism and SF
• SF and Surrealism in the postmodern novel

Paper proposals of about 250 words should be sent to gavin.parkinson@courtauld.ac.uk

CFP: Phoenix Comicon Comic Art Conference (3/30; 5/27-30)

Call for papers

The Phoenix Comicon is sponsoring a comic art conference in conjunction with its programming from May 27-30, 2010. Based on participant interest, we are expanding the scope of the comics conference to include broader areas of comics scholarship.

We are seeking papers for presentations from academics, teachers, artists, retailers, and others who engage comics on either a practical or scholarly level. The conference will feature a number of themes, and respondents are encouraged to pitch their own ideas or propose a panel discussion.

Technology and the comics: Futures and Resistance

• Critical approaches to and innovations in web comics
• The shift from traditional illustration and distribution methods to digital methods
• Applications and analysis of “infinite canvas” texts
• Constrained comics and other resistance authors/artists

Comic culture in the 21st century

• Changes in how we sell, collect, and consume comics
• Scanlations and manga
• Teaching comics
• Cosplay and costuming

Media blending

• Video games and comics
• Movie and other adaptations
• Motion comics and other web-based media

Respondents are encouraged to expand on this list in shaping their proposals. Respondents are also encouraged to pitch alternate panels.

Graduate students, artists, writers, industry professionals, independent scholars, and academics are all encouraged to submit. We envision our panels as representing a variety of perspectives geared toward the broad audience of the Phoenix Comicon. Panels will last for one hour. Presenters will be asked to make a short presentation, followed by a moderated panel round table and a Q and A session with the audience. Presentations integrating audio and visuals are recommended. Please note any A/V needs along with your proposal.

Please submit a 300-500 word proposal to Dr. Kathleen Dunley at DrDunley@gmail.com by March 30, 2010. Proposals will go through a peer review process and those accepted will be notified via email.

CFP Reminder: Fractured Images / Broken Words (conference: February 15; June 12)

Note: The organizers of the following conference are still looking for participants!

Fractured Images / Broken Words
A Multi-Disciplinary PostGraduate Symposium
Department of English and Creative Writing
Lancaster University, UK
June 12, 2010

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Terry Eagleton, Lancaster University
and
Andy Diggle, comic-book writer and former editor of 2000 AD

Featuring art installations by Christine Dawson

Click here for our original post about this conference.

CFP: Time & Space - IBDS Conference (November 30; July 8-9, 2011)

For more information about the International Bande Dessinée Society, visit its website.

International Bande Dessinée Society
Seventh Bi-Annual Conference
Friday 8 and Saturday 9 July 2011
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester, England

Call for Papers
Time and Space

We welcome proposals on all aspects of time and space in bande dessinée, including narrative and thematic levels.

Bande dessinée is a spatial medium which has the resources to manage both narrative time and narrative space in multiple ways. The indeterminacy of the interframe space allows for complex relationships between the chronology of the narration and the chronology of events within the diegesis: it may be used to distend or accelerate the narration, and to manipulate order through analepsis and prolepsis, rarely signalled as overtly as in film. Different temporalities may also co-exist within a single panel, as the capacity of the medium to blur boundaries between inner and outer worlds makes it possible for remembered or half-repressed material to break through into the daily reality of a protagonist. The representation of space is similarly complex, as the spatial transitions within the diegesis are overlaid by the non-linear spatial patterning of the page, and the book, as a whole.

Time and space have long been key themes of the medium: in the classic period of Franco-Belgian production, history, science fiction and adventure were major genres, and in more recent work by artists associated with alternative publishing houses, the intertwining of the personal and national past has emerged as a key area of interest, along with revisionist histories, often of the colonial period. Adventure has tended to give way to reportage, and to the exploration of the spaces of modernity, and postmodernity, including non-lieux, heterotopias and marginal spaces associated with exclusion.

The signifying practices of the medium in relation to time and space have been theorised by scholars including Fresnault-Deruelle (linear and tabular dimensions of the medium), Benoît Peeters (the notion of the périchamp, and the typology of mise en page), Thierry Groensteen (codes of arthrology, regulating the articulation of panels), Jan Baetens and Pascal Lefèvre (spatial integration of text into the image) and Scott McCloud (typology of transitions). The ambition and experimentation of bande dessinée that has been produced by contemporary artists has encouraged scholars to employ frameworks of analysis drawn from a variety of disciplines, including postcolonial theory and cultural geography. Current academic work on bande dessinée is building on this theoretical base and extending it: we intend that the conference should provide a forum for significant advances, and in particular to create synergy between narrative and thematic approaches to time and space.

Please send papers to either

Dr Matthew Screech, Manchester Metropolitan University - m.screech@mmu.ac.uk

Or

Dr Ann Miller, University of Leicester - am84@leicester.ac.uk

Deadline: November 30, 2010

Image credit: By Tanitoc, from the IBDS website.

CFP - Comics: Cultures & Genres (Jan. 15; April 13-14)

The Graphic Novel and Comic Conference
COMICS: CULTURES & GENRES
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
13-14 April 2010

Comics and graphic novels enjoy a paradoxical relationship with mainstream culture. Their narratives and characters are familiar to mass audiences through their adaptations in film, television and other mass media. However comics’ texts are rarely known or read outside comic book cultures. In recent years comics have instigated themselves into the public consciousness due, to a number of diverse circumstances such as the narrative possibilities they offer in an increasingly complex transmedia landscape.

This conference aims to explore the intersections between comic books, graphic novels, their audiences and the ways they reflect the cultures and subcultures that produce them. The conference themes reflect the scope and aims of Routledge’s new journal, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, edited by David Huxley and Joan Ormrod, (first issue July 2010).

Abstracts of up to 250 words are invited around (but are not confined to) the following issues:

• Genres (horror, romance, superheroes, autobiography, experimental etc)
• Underground/alternative comics
• Censorship
• Online comics
• Political and topical issues
• Fans and audiences (subcultures, gender, subcultural production)
• Comics production and distribution systems
• Experimental comics

Presentations will be 20 minutes long.

Abstracts should be sent by 15 January 2010 to David Huxley (D.Huxley@mmu.ac.uk) and Joan Ormrod (J.ormrod@mmu.ac.uk)

Read the full call for papers: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/cfp/rcomcfp1.pdf

Find out more about the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rcom

CFP - 3rd annual New Narrative conference: Narrative arts and visual media (March 31; May 6-7)

3rd annual New Narrative conference:
Narrative arts and visual media
An interdisciplinary conference
at the University of Toronto
6-7 May 2010

In keeping with the spirit of sequels, we are again soliciting papers on a wide range of graphic novels, comic art, and related visual media. Comics, whether in the form of novelistic illustrations, newspaper serials, animated films, film adaptations, graphic novels, or sequential art narratives, have been with us since the rise of literature itself, yet until recently such media have never been considered "serious" - or at least, serious enough to be considered novels that might be on university syllabi. But are illustrated novels and live action films really about the pictures and not the narrative? How can the history of the form be reconciled with consumer culture and the ill-defined categories of "high" and "low" culture?

Papers which examine and interpret these narratives in interdisciplinary forms are most welcome. Essays on novelistic illustrations, newspaper serials, animated films, film adaptations, graphic novels, or sequential art narratives may consider the following (incomplete) list:

• graphic novels and auto/biography
• illustrated and multi-media works
• web design and on-line comix
• film adaptations of comics
• series; engravings and caricatures
• the Comics Code Authority
• the "invention" of manga
• geopolitics/war and the graphic novel
• bande desinée & European comix
• early comics & comic history
• illustrations in (literary) novels
• woodcut and "silent" artists

Proposals should be 400-500 words and must clearly indicate significance, the line of argument, principal texts considered, and relation to existing scholarship (or originality). One email copy of the proposal, and a 50 word bio note must be included, as an attachment in MS Word.

Deadline for proposals is 31 March 2010 (responses by 08 April 2010)

Jeff Parker, Assistant Professor, and/or Dr Andrew Lesk
Department of English, University of Toronto
E-mail: andrew.lesk@utoronto.ca

See also http://andrewlesk.com/conferences.html

This Conference will take place just before the Toronto Comics Arts Festival on May 8 and 9. (See Torontocomics.com)

CFP: Bilder des Comics (Germany) (Feb. 28; Nov. 25-27)

FYI.

Gesellschaft für Comicforschung (ComFor)
5. Wissenschaftstagung
Bilder des Comics: Visualität, Sequenzialität, Medialität
25.-27. November 2010
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Call for Papers

Seit dem sogenannten „Iconic Turn“ haben sich in den Humanwissenschaften neue Forschungsansätze und Untersuchungsgegenstände etabliert. Weit über ästhetische Fragestellungen hinaus sind Themen der Bildlichkeit keine Marginalie mehr, sondern stehen im Zentrum des kulturellen Selbstverständnisses der Moderne. Die mediale Fokussierung auf Techniken und Praktiken der Schriftlichkeit und oralen Kommunikation wird so durch Kriterien einer bildlichen, visuellen, ikonischen Erschließung und Produktion von Welt ergänzt und wesentlich erweitert. Diese These ist für die modernen Gesellschaften um so überzeugender, als deren Alltagswelten stark geprägt sind von der Präsenz von Bildern und ganzen Bildwelten. Wenn sich kulturelle Realität u.a. maßgeblich über Medienrezeption erschließt, dann muss die Wahrnehmung von Bildern ebenso wie die Kommunikation und Sinngebung über Bilder als kulturell relevant akzeptiert werden. In Frage steht dabei unter anderem, ob es eine Sprache oder vergleichbare Semiotik der Bilder gibt – oder ob Bildlichkeit vielmehr einer Eigenlogik folgt, die sich auch in den kulturellen Repräsentationsmodi niederschlägt, welche das Bildliche zwischen den Individuen und kulturellen sowie gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhängen vermitteln. Sofern Bilder außerdem stets an mediale Träger gebunden sind, ist nach deren Spezifika zu fragen. Im Anschluß an McLuhan ist schließlich davon auszugehen, dass ein spezifisches Medium auch spezifische Weisen der Kommunikation und der Rezeption ausbildet, also kulturelle Bedeutungslagen eigensinnig gestaltet. Die gleichzeitige Manipulation und Ermöglichung von Wahrnehmung, insbesondere durch seinen ikonischen Index, ist jedem Medium daher eingeschrieben.

Speziell eine über Bilder getragene Form wie der Comic bietet sich für eine Untersuchung dieses Aspekts an: Comics sind seit ihrer modernen Konzeption in besonderer Weise Ort und Anlaß für gesellschaftliche, künstlerische und akademische Reflektionen über die sich wandelnde Orientierung auf Bilder gewesen, sie sind damit zugleich Schauplatz, Archiv und Testgelände für zahlreiche mediale Veränderungen gewesen. Denn wenn sich Gesellschaft nach Flusser tatsächlich in Richtung einer zunehmenden Betonung ikonischer Zeichen bewegt, dann stellt der Comic eine Schnittstelle in der Generierung von Bedeutung mittels Schrift und mittels Bildlichkeit dar. Elemente der Schriftkultur und des Lesens verbinden sich hier mit solchen eines sequentiellen Sehens, das narrative Kontexte jenseits der reinen Ikonographie erst erschließt. Die Repräsentation des Bildes, der Sog der Wahrnehmung beim Rezipienten, die Genese eines kohärenten Wirklichkeitszusammenhangs im Zuge semiotischer Prozesse, die Erstellung von Formen artifizieller Präsenz im Comic ist daher zu untersuchen. Fragen aus diesem Spektrum wird die 5. Wissenschaftstagung der Gesellschaft für Comicforschung (ComFor) aufgreifen und diskutieren.

Datum: 25.-27. November 2010

Ort: Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Organisation: PD Dr. Jörn Ahrens, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Abstracts: Themenabstracts von maximal 300 Wörtern Umfang richten Sie bitte bis spätestens 28. Februar 2010 per Email an Jörn Ahrens (joern.ahrens@sowi.uni-giessen.de). Das Abstract soll den Titel sowie das Anliegen des Vortrags, eine kurze biobibliographische Angabe sowie Name, Email-Adresse und Anschrift enthalten. Die Vortragsdauer liegt bei maximal 30 Minuten.

Forum: Die ComFor öffnet auch in diesem Jahr ein Forum als Werkstatt für die Vorstellung und Diskussion laufender und geplanter Forschungsprojekte zu jedem Aspekt der Comicforschung. Hier kann insbesondere der wissenschaftliche Nachwuchs seine Arbeit etwa im Rahmen von Qualifikationsarbeiten vorstellen. Abstracts folgen der oben beschriebenen Form und Einreichfrist; die Vorträge sollen eine Dauer von 15 Minuten nicht überschreiten.

Unterkunft: Eine Liste mit Hotels wird Ihnen mit den Tagungsunterlagen zugeschickt.

CFP: Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels (January 29; June 17)

Call for papers:

Comics and Medicine:
Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels

17th June 2010
School of Advanced Study, Institute of English Studies
University of London

Confirmed keynote lectures by
Paul Gravett and Marc Zaffran

This one-day interdisciplinary conference aims to explore medical narrative in graphic novels and comics. Although the first comic book was invented in 1837 the long-format graphic narrative has only become a distinct and unique body of literary work relatively recently. Thanks in part to the growing Medical Humanities movement, many medical schools now encourage the reading of literature and the study of art to gain insights into the human condition. A serious content for comics is not new but representation of illness in graphic novels is an increasing trend. The melding of text and visuals in graphic fiction and non-fiction has much to offer medical professionals, students and, indeed, patients. Among the growing number of graphic novels, a sub-genre exploring the patients' and the carers' experiences of illness or disability has emerged.

Papers and posters are invited on issues related to, but not restricted to, the
following themes:

• What motivates authors to produce graphic narratives with medical content?
• How does the audience for this growing genre differ from traditional markets for so-called 'pathographies'?
• What additional insights can graphic narratives offer into healthcare compared with literature and film?
• What international trends are discernible in the production and reception of medical graphic narratives?
• What are the ethical implications of using graphic narratives to disseminate public health messages?
• What are the strengths of graphic fiction in bioethics conversations? In conversations between patients and health care workers?
• How have patients (and patient communities) turned to graphic fiction to communicate health care and advocacy information to other patients, their family and surrounding community, and their physicians?
• How do patient-created graphic fictions/narratives differ from physician- or health-care industry-created graphic narratives? What does this imply about the role played by graphic fiction in institutionalized medicine?
• How can graphic stories be used in medical education and patient education?
• What are the roles of graphic stories in enhancing communication within the medical profession, in scholarship and in the medical humanities?

Contributions are sought from humanities scholars, comics scholars, healthcare professionals, comics enthusiasts, writers and cartoonists.

300 word proposals for a 20 minute paper or a poster should be submitted by Friday 29th January 2010 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org

Abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract

We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed blind and papers for presentation will be selected by Friday 26th of February 2010.

A report of the conference will be submitted to relevant journals and websites. All the papers and posters accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for development in a themed volume (subject to funding).

Paul Gravett is a London-based freelance journalist, curator, lecturer, writer and broadcaster, who has worked in comics publishing and promotion since 1981. He has curated numerous exhibitions of comic art in Britain and in Europe and since 2003 has been the director of Comica, London's International Comics Festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Paul is the co-author, with Peter Stanbury, of the books Manga: 60 Years Of Japanese Comics (2004), Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life (2005), Great British Comics: Celebrating A Century Of Ripping Yarns & Wizard Wheezes (2006), The Leather Nun & Other Incredibly Strange Comics (2008) and he is the editor of The Mammoth Book Of Best Crime Comics (2008). On television he has been a consultant and interview subject on The South Bank Show's programme Manga Mania (2006) and BBC4's documentary series Comics Britannia (2007). Also, he appeared as interview subject in the DVD documentary The Mindscape Of Alan Moore (2007). He continues to write about comics for various periodicals.

Marc Zaffran, M.D. is a French-born Family Physician and a writer (under the pen name Martin Winckler). He is currently a researcher at the University of Montreal. He has written forty books including novels and essays on patient-doctor relationship, the ethics of healthcare and the representation of Doctors in mass-media fiction including pulp novels, television drama and comic-books. He is currently studying the works of a French doctor and comic-book artist, Charles Masson.

For more information go to http://www.graphicmedicine.org or http://ies.sas.ac.uk/events/index.htm

CFP: ImageNext (UF conference: Dec. 31; Mar. 26-27)

Just posted to the Comics Scholars Discussion List...

ImageNext:

Visions Past and Future Conference
University of Florida
March 26 and 27, 2010

The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and sciences is pleased to announce the 2010 UF Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, "ImageNext: Visions Past and Future," which will be held in Gainesville, Florida on March 26 and 27. Guest speakers will include UCLA's David Kunzle (The History of the Comic Strip, Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Töpffer), John Porcellino (King Cat), Molly Kiely (Diary of a Dominatrix, That Kind of Girl) and University of Iowa’s Corey Creekmur (Director of the Institute for Cinema and Culture).

This year's conference will focus on "comics" - in their broadest sense, which includes animation, manga, anime, graphic novels, webcomics, political cartoons, and even some "fine art" - that explore human history and alternate histories. Comics discussed may include reimaginings of the past (both personal and cultural), projections of the future and revisions of pre-existing timelines, fictional or historical. Presentations could address comics that represent historical periods and/or genres (i.e. classic comics, steampunk, etc.) or the historical precedents of comics as we now understand them (i.e. political cartoons in nineteenth-century newspapers, narrative paintings, etc.).

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• comics in/as history (Rodolphe Topffer, George Cruikshank, John Leech)
• comics as cultural records (Maus, Persepolis, contemporary comic strips and political cartoons)
• biographical and autobiographical comics (Julie Doucet, Fun Home, With the Light, Epileptic)
• historically based genres (e.g. steampunk and cyberpunk, (post-)apocalyptic narratives)
• multiverses and alternate continuities (Crisis on Infinite Earths, 52, House of M, Marvel Zombies)
• comic book continuity reboots (Marvel, Ultimate Universe, etc.)
• the visual rhetoric of utopias and dystopias (Y The Last Man, Akira)
• the revision and reimagination of the superhero (Watchmen, Kingdom Come, Marvels, Astro City)
• comic adaptations and appropriations of literature ("Classic Comics," manga Shakespeare, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

Submit an abstract (250-400 words) of your presentation by December 31, 2009. Send all submissions and questions to visions@grove.ufl.edu. Please include the words "Comics Conference" in your subject heading.

The conference will be held on the University of Florida campus.

Image credit: Dylan Horrocks, from the UF Comics Conferences website.

CFP: Fractured Images / Broken Words (conference: February 15; June 12)

Note the explicit suggestion of papers about graphic novels. Click here for the conference website. Thanks to the Institute for Comics Studies for the tip.

Fractured Images / Broken Words
A Multi-Disciplinary PostGraduate Symposium
Department of English and Creative Writing
Lancaster University, UK
June 12, 2010

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Terry Eagleton, Lancaster University
and
Andy Diggle, comic-book writer and former editor of 2000 AD

Featuring art installations by Christine Dawson

Visual and multi-modal texts are an integral element of both popular and literary culture, contemporary and past. This conference invites papers which engage with the notion of text and image, through, for example critical examination of graphic novels, television, film, illustrated texts or adaptations. We actively welcome papers with an interdisciplinary approach, allowing for a collision of meaning and interpretations of both text and image. We’re particularly interested in – but not limiting our remit to – topics which focus on the fusion of word and image, and perhaps on the gaps which can be perceived between, and within, visual and textual representation. Where do textual spaces exist? Where do word and image meet? Where do they separate? Where does meaning fuse? Where does it disintegrate? As the conference title suggests, we’re also interested in the duplicitous and unstable nature of texts and images and would also like to explore issues such as: How words and / or images be misappropriated, misused or misdirected to create alternative and divergent meanings; The fragility of meaning created by words and / or images; Problems of reading and interpretation.

This conference will provide a stimulating environment for postgraduate students and other researchers to present work and to share and discuss ideas stemming from the examination of texts employing varied representational modes, adaptations and interactions between text and image. We hope to encourage speakers from multiple disciplines, working across historical, cultural and literary periods, and with a wide range of texts.

Suggested topics, themes and disciplinary approaches include:

• Film Studies
• Cultural Studies
• Literary Studies
• Language
• Propaganda Texts
• Journalism / Photo Journalism
• Graphic Novels and Picture Books
• Children and Young Adult Literature
• Television
• Identity
• Ownership of Truth
• Authenticity
• Biographical Texts
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Sexuality
• Translation
• Gaps and Silences
• Absences

Or, any other topic which the conference title inspires.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers not exceeding 20 minutes should be submitted by 15th February 2010, to the organisers at: conference@lancasterluminary.com. Please include the title of your paper, your name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation, and a brief summary of your research interests.

For more information, visit the conference website.

CFP: Comic Art & Comics, PCA (Nov. 30; March 31-April 3)

I've been going to the PCA for nearly 15 years. It's a great place, particularly for beginning scholars: You'll find a large, collegial, and enthusiastic community of like-minded comics academics.

Comic Art & Comics Area
Popular Culture Association
Comics:
Graphic Novels, Strips, Panels, Films,
and Everything in Between

The Comic Art & Comics Area of the Popular Culture Association invites all comics scholars to participate in the annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association to be held March 31 - April 3, 2010, in St. Louis, Missouri, at the Renaissance Grand Hotel St. Louis. Details of the conference can be found at the conference website: www.pcaaca.org.

The Comic Art & Comics Area of the Popular Culture Association offers a chance for scholars from across the country to share their research and exchange ideas on the growing field of comics scholarship. Graduate students and those without current academic affiliation are also welcome. Papers on all aspects of the medium are invited. Past papers have covered mainstream comic books, graphic novels, underground comics, cartoons, comic strips, comics and film, international comics, writers, artists, teaching comics, and writing and publishing comics scholarship.

This call asks for individual paper proposals or submissions for entire panels. If you are submitting a panel, please make sure to note the members of your panel. In addition to general papers, if a presenter would like to propose a special panel or roundtable discussion, please e-mail the chair so she can forward the request to the mailing list.

Papers should be delivered in 15-20 minutes. The PCA limits presenters to one paper given at the conference, so if you are interested in presenting a paper in the Comic Art & Comics Area, do not submit a paper to another area. Participants are eligible for the annual Inge Award for Comics Scholarship, awarded to the top paper presented in the Comic Art & Comics Area of the PCA.

Scholars interested in presenting a paper at the national conference should send a 100-200 word abstract and a short introductory bio by November 30, 2009, to the area chair:

Via e-mail:
Nicole Freim: nfreim@charter.net

Via mail:
Nicole Freim
Riverside Community College
1798 Main Street
Riverside, CA 92501

For more information, please visit the PCA web site: http://www.pcaaca.org

CFP: Magus: Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Alan Moore (Dec 4; May 28-29)

Magus:
Transdisciplinary Approaches
to the Work of Alan Moore
28th and 29th May 2010
Avenue Campus, The University of Northampton
United Kingdom

Alan Moore has consistently been at the forefront of the graphic novel medium for almost thirty years, being the iconic figure behind such pioneering works as Marvelman and V for Vendetta, the revolutionary Watchmen, to From Hell, Promethea and, most recently, Lost Girls to name but a few. Alongside his work in the comic medium he has written one novel, Voices from the Fire [sic], and is subsequently working on the ambitious Jerusalem project. He has also worked as a graphic artist, performed and recorded a series of musical collaborations largely related to site-specific events, and in recent years has become a magician.

While Moore’s contribution to the comic medium is undisputed, academic appraisals of his work have been fragmentary and there have been no dedicated scholarly events to date that seek to give an overview of his oeuvre. As such The University of Northampton is pleased to announce Magus: Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Alan Moore, an interdisciplinary conference that will bring together not only appraisals of Moore’s comic works, but also his wider cultural manifestations and their significance at the start of the 21st century. Given his burgeoning literary and cultural importance, Moore’s significant profile in the wake of several recent Hollywood adaptations of his work (despite his own antipathy towards those adaptations and their place within the culture industries), and the relationship to Northampton’s cultural landscape (both physical and psychic) that recurs throughout his work, both the time and location are fitting for a dedicated appraisal of his cultural legacy thus far.

The review panel are seeking papers for the conference, or proposals for potential panels on a particular subject. We invite presentations from the perspective of any discipline; literary studies, cultural studies, film studies, art, philosophy, linguistics, politics, sociology and others.

Potential topics for papers or panels might include, but are not restricted to:

• Comic revisionism and the graphic novel
• Comics and literature
• The political philosophy of Moore’s canon
• Moore’s relationship to the mainstream comic industry
• Adaptations of Moore’s work to screen and other media
• Psychogeography and place in Moore’s work
• Magick and spirituality
• Site-specific events
• Pornography and erotica in Moore’s work
• Fandom and reception
• The underground press
• Collaborations and networks
• Music and musical collaborations
• Intertextuality and referentiality

We are pleased to announce that the keynote speech will be given by Paul Gravett, author of Great British Comics, Cult Fiction: Art and Comics, Graphic Novels: Everything you Need to Know and a lynchpin of the British comics scene.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words, accompanied by a short biography of no more than 100 words should be submitted to the conference review panel by 4th December 2009.

For more information on the conference or to submit an abstract email Nathan Wiseman-Trowse at nathan.wiseman-trowse@northampton.ac.uk.

Full details of registration, plenary speakers and accommodation will be announced shortly.

Dr Nathan Wiseman-Trowse
Senior Lecturer in Popular Culture
The School of the Arts
The University of Northampton
Avenue Campus
St George’s Avenue
Northampton
NN2 6JD
United Kingdom

CFP: For Love of the Fans: Fandom, Comics and Film Adaptations (Nov. 1; Nov. 11-14, 2010)

Call for Papers
For Love of the Fans:
Fandom, Comics and Film Adaptations
2010 Film & History Conference:
Representations of Love in Film and Television
November 11-14, 2010
Hyatt Regency Milwaukee
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Second Round Deadline: November 1, 2009

AREA: For Love of the Fans: Fandom, Comics and Adaptations

Since comic books began featuring letters to the editor in each issue, fan culture has been a pivotal and clear presence in comics. This presence and investment became even more potent as fandom culture began to reside in physical settings such as comic book shops and conventions. Fandom culture has become more present and powerful in the Internet age and while they were once solely the butt-end of jokes, they now garner the attention of producers, directors, and writers. Their love and investment in comics are now considered important by creators in generating promotion and excitement for films. Unlike the previous 50 years of comic adaptations, the last 20 years have seen significant efforts by producers to tie into fan expectations from as far back as the X-Men and Batman cartoon series of the 1990s up through the latest superhero-blockbuster.

This area welcomes multiple papers and panels that consider the following questions about comic fandom and television/film adaptation as well as additional topics in this vein:

• How have studios used the fanbase to encourage or promote comic adaptations such as Watchmen?
• In what ways have studios and directors relied on the fanbase to determine the direction of sequels or future seasons with regards to plot, villains, and character development in such franchises as X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, Superman (including Smallville), Fantastic Four and the like?
• What roles have the fans played in comic-film reboots such as Batman, Superman, the Incredible Hulk, the Punisher, and the supposedly forthcoming reboot of Fantastic Four franchise?
• Does the role of same-universe strategies being explored by Marvel Comics with its release of Iron Man and the reboot of Incredible Hulk operate as a means to attracting fans?
• In what ways have comic forums, such as Wizard Magazine or Comic Book Resources played in influencing the casting of particular actors and actresses for certain roles?
• What’s to be made of the increasing and dominant presence of film studios at “comic events” such as San Diego’s ComicCon?
• What role do famous fans (Kevin Smith, Nicholas Cage, et al) have in the construction of or success of comic book adaptations?
• How do films target “in-crowd” moments for fans such as Stan Lee cameos in Marvel films or self-reflective comments about comics and superheroes by superhero films?
• How has film and television represented comic fandom from the Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy to movies such as Fanboys, Comic Book Villains, and Chasing Amy or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?

Please send your 200-word proposal via e-mail by November 1 to the area chair:

Lance Eaton, Area Chair
Emerson College
Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies
120 Boylston St.
Boston, MA 02116
Email: Lance_Eaton@emerson.edu (email submissions preferred)

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website: www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory

CFP: Margins of Print: Ephemera, Print Culture, and Lost Histories of the Newspaper (U of Nottingham: Oct 31; Feb. 15)

Call for Papers
Margins of Print:
Ephemera, Print Culture,
and Lost Histories of the Newspaper
University of Nottingham
School of History
Friday 15th January 2010

This one-day conference/symposium will address the significance of transitory, elusive texts in Britain, Europe and America, including textual artifacts that have eluded traditional categories of print, or have been dismissed as short-lived, disposable, or valueless. To this end, the conference seeks to establish the value of a wide range of ephemera, from pamphlets and pulps, agony columns or matrimonial advertisements to pictorial matter, cards, cartoons, competitions, display advertising and personal ads. Recent decades have witnessed a shift in scholarly interest toward this formerly overlooked print tradition. New digital resources in particular are bringing into view a wide range of printed materials once hidden from the sight of researchers. Some questions raised by this material include: What are the appropriate methods of interpretation for working with ephemeral texts? What do these unique texts tell us about our cultural, social, or technological histories? How do transitory materials document the history of the nation in different ways from other sources? By asking such questions, this event aims to tell the untold stories of ephemera.

Selected papers from the event will be included in a special issue of Media Studies.

We welcome papers on any aspect of ephemera and print culture. Please send proposals of c.500-1000 words to Dr Harry Cocks (harry.cocks@nottingham.ac.uk) and Dr Matt Rubery (m.rubery@leeds.ac.uk) by 31 October 2009.

Conference - Destined for Men: Visual Materials for Male Audiences, 1750 - 1880 (Worcester, MA; Oct. 16-17)

With presentations on caricatures and other illustrations, this conference might be of interest to comics scholars.

Destined for Men:
Visual Materials for Male Audiences,
1750 - 1880

October 16-17, 2009
American Antiquarian Society
Worcester, Massachusetts

Through the emergence of women's studies programs in academic institutions in the past generation or two, many aspects of women's lives have been documented through publications and academic courses. The third conference of the Center for Historic American Visual Culture focuses not on women but on men. Looking at examples of visual materials of and for men is a way to look at a different gendered audience. In the literature on American graphic materials, little has been written about the audience for historical images. The papers presented at this conference begin to address this need.

The presentations by scholars from a variety of disciplines address images of the male body, public portraiture, prints and illustrations for male audiences, boxing, erotica, using drawings as examples of friendship among men, and men and fashion advertisements. Speakers include curators, librarians, historians, art historians, and literary scholars.

Joshua Brown, executive director of the American Social History Project, located in the Graduate Center of The City University of New York, will present "Catching His Eye: The Sporting Male Pictorial Press in the Gilded Age," the Twenty-Seventh James Russell Wiggins Lecture in the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, October 16.

Between the final session and the Wiggins Lecture, there will be time to view selected materials from the graphic arts collection in the Council Room in Antiquarian Hall

For the schedule of presentations, see the conference website, which is also the source for the illustration above.

CFP: Desiring the Text, Touching the Past: Towards An Erotics of Reception (Bristoll UK: Nov. 30; July 10)

Note that this CFP specifically addresses those working on visual texts and those working on fan culture. I think papers on comics would fit in well here...

Call for Papers

Desiring the Text, Touching the Past:
Towards An Erotics of Reception

A one-day conference co-organized by
the Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition
& the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

University of Bristol, 10 July 2010

Keynote Speaker:
Professor Carolyn Dinshaw, NYU

In reading Cicero’s letters I felt charmed and offended in equal measure. Indeed, beside myself, in a fit of anger I wrote to him as if he were a friend and contemporary of mine, forgetting, as it were, the gap of time, with a familiarity appropriate to my intimate acquaintance with his thought; and I pointed out those things he had written that had offended me.
(Petrarch, Rerum Familiarum Liber I.1.42)

Love, desire, fannish obsession and emotional identification as modes of engaging with texts, characters and authors are often framed as illegitimate and transgressive: excessive, subjective, lacking in scholarly rigour. Yet such modes of relating to texts and pasts persist, across widely different historical periods and cultural contexts. Many classical and medieval authors recount embodied and highly emotional encounters with religious, fictional or historical characters, while modern and postmodern practices of reception and reading – from high art to the subcultural practices of media fandom – are characterized by desire in all its ambivalent complexity. Theories of readership and reception, however, sometimes seem unable to move beyond an antagonistic model: cultural studies sees resistant audiences struggling to gain control of or to overwrite an ideologically loaded text, while literary models of reception have young poets fighting to assert their poetic autonomy vis-à-vis the paternal authority of their literary ancestors.

This conference aims, by contrast, to begin to elaborate a theory of the erotics of reception. It will bring together scholars working in and across various disciplines to share research into reading, writing and viewing practices characterized by love, identification, and desire: we hope that it will lead to the establishment of an international research network and the formulation of some long-term research projects. In order to facilitate discussion at the conference, we will ask participants to circulate full papers (around 5,000 words) in May 2010.

We now invite abstracts of 300 words, to be submitted by email by 30 November 2009. Abstracts will be assessed on the basis of their theoretical and interdisciplinary interest. We particularly welcome contributions from scholars working on literary, visual and performance texts in the fields of: history, reception studies, mediaeval studies, fan studies, cultural studies, theology, and literary/critical theory.

Some ideas which might be addressed include, but are not limited to:

• Writing oneself into the text: self-insertion and empathetic identification
• Historical desire: does the historian desire the past?
• Hermeneutics and erotics
• Pleasures of the text, pleasures of the body: (how) are embodied responses to the text gendered?
• Anachronistic reading: does desire disturb chronology?
• Erotics and/or eristics: love-hate relationships with texts

This conference is part of the ‘Thinking Reciprocity’ series and will follow directly from the conference ‘Reception and the Gift of Beauty’ (Bristol, 8-9 July 2010). Reduced fees will be offered to people attending both conferences.

If you have any queries, or to submit an abstract, please contact one of the conference organizers:
Dr Ika Willis (Ika.Willis@bristol.ac.uk);
Anna Wilson (anna.wilson@utoronto.ca).

CFP: Love and Sex in the Films and Graphic Novels of Alan Moore (11/1/09; 11/11-14/10)

Thanks to Charles Hatfield for the tip!

Call for Papers
Love and Sex in
the Films and Graphic Novels
of Alan Moore
2010 Film & History Conference:
Representations of Love in Film and Television
November 11-14, 2010
Hyatt Regency Milwaukee
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Second Round Deadline: November 1, 2009

Alan Moore has a love-hate relationship with the film industry, yet films based on his work proliferate: From Hell (2001), V for Vendetta (2005), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), and Watchmen (2009). Sex and (possibly) love abound in Moore's novels and in the films grounded, to some extent, in his writing. In V for Vendetta, Moore juxtaposes the love of the computerized state with the more transient love of men and women. In V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Watchmen, he poses difficult questions about the nature of (super)heroic love for others, and for democracy, nation, and empire. Throughout his work, Moore is attuned to issues of representation, and to how representation demarcates the reality of those who are "loved."

Moore may be the exemplary postmodern graphic novelist, and "his" films are well worth considering for what they say about our particular historical moment, and in *this* particular moment, what they say about various manifestations of love.

This area is open to any paper or panel proposal which examines the representation of love, sex, and ethical relations in any work influenced by, or authored by Moore. Possible topics might include:

• Anarchy as love
• Love, sex, and postcoloniality
• Victorian love
• Postmodern pastiche as a form of love-making
• Love in (loving) the state--fascist love
• Love and the body
• Love in adaptation
• Representing love in film versus sequential art
• Representation and the limits of love
• Loving one another: Thomas Pynchon and Alan Moore
• Freedom as love
• God and (as?) love
• Exposure as love
• Inoperative communities and love

Please send your 200-word proposal by email to the area chair:

Todd Comer, Area Chair
Defiance College
701 North Clinton Street
Defiance OH 43512
Email: tcomer@defiance.edu (email submissions preferred)

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).

CFP: From an Intercultural Crossover to a Transcultural Phenomenon (Cologne, Germany; deadline August 31)

Sorry for the late notice, but I only just learned of this conference...

From an Intercultural Crossover
to a Transcultural Phenomenon:
Manga, Comic, Graphic Novel
September 30 – October 2, 2010
International Conference at the Cultural Institute of Japan, Cologne
(Japanisches Kulturinstitut Köln, The Japan Foundation)
in cooperation with CITS
(Center for Inter- & Transcultural Studies, University of Cologne)

Manga, comics and graphic novels are shaped by different cultural codes and shifting visual and narrative conventions. This conference focuses on the historical development and theoretical aspects of comics and manga by stressing their mutual influences. Whereas European and North American art and popular culture exert a great impact on Japanese manga, such as the Franco-Belgian tradition of “ligne claire” on Ōtomo Katsuhiro and Taniguchi Jirō, Walt Disney’s animated films on Tezuka Ōsamu and Christian and Antique ideas on Miyazaki Hayao, Japanese manga influence the concept and visual conventions of modern European and American comics as well, as can be seen in the work by Frédéric Boilet, Moebius, and Frank Miller, among others. Moreover, the intercultural exchange between the Japanese manga tradition and equivalent forms of sequential art in other Asian countries (i.e. China, India, and Korea) largely contributes to the dissemination of new hybrid art forms in the realm of comics and manga.

The purpose of this conference is to bring together scholars and other experts of different countries and different fields, i.e. literary studies, picture theory, cultural studies, linguistics, narratology, film studies, and semiotics, who pursue different areas of investigation in this field. In order to adhere to a general outline for this conference, the papers might deal with one or several of the following topics:

• Intermedial, intercultural and narrative perspectives for the interpretation of the graphic novel and other genres of sequential art prominent in both comics and manga
• Comparative analysis of the construction of time and setting in comics and manga
• The functions of color in comics and manga
• Similarities and differences between Japanese and other Asian manga and European and North American comics
• Impact of wordless comics and manga
• Historical development of the mutual influence of comics and manga
• Change of the conventional verbal signs (such as speech balloons, sound effects, typography)
• Influence of films and cinematic style on the production of comics and manga
• Influence of visual codes derived from art history and popular culture in order to create an individual artistic style

Contributions from academics and experts interested in any of these areas and in international perspectives are particularly welcome. There are plans to publishing the proceedings of the conference afterwards in book form.

The deadline for proposals is: 31 August 2009.

Please email a 300 word abstract (for a thirty minute paper, followed by 15 minutes for discussion) and a short biography as an attached word document to Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer at: bettina.kuemmerling@t-online.de and Franziska Ehmcke at: amm07@uni-koeln.de

Notification of the acceptance of proposals will be made by 30 September 2009.

The conference fee will be 120 Euro, including catering, technical equipment, conference folders and various arrangements.

The conference venue is located in the Cultural Institute of Japan, not far from the University of Cologne. For details, go to www.jki.de (text in German and Japanese).

Image Credit: Cultural Institute of Japan website.

CFP: 'Reading Conflict' (postgrad) (19 April; 19 July 2010)

This might be a bit tenuous, but...: I can see room for comics-related work here, such as an essay that considers the form's text/image dichotomy (or is there one, hmmm?), perhaps drawing on the paragone in which Leonardo da Vinci participated. There, I've got your abstract 1/4 written - go for it!

Call For Papers
'Reading Conflict'
Postgraduate Conference
Institute of English Studies
Senate House, London
19 July 2010

The Open University will be holding a Postgraduate Day Conference titled 'Reading Conflict' at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London on Monday 19 July 2010. Sarah Brouillette (Carleton University) will be the keynote speaker. The conference organisers welcome papers from postgraduate students, especially those working in postcolonial studies and the history of the book.

Key themes include:

• Conflict and the Creative Voice
• Reading during Conflict
• Conflict and Publishing
• Conflict and the History of the Book
• Conflict and Travel Writing
• Conflict and the Canon
• Conflict between Literary Disciplines
• Conflict between Literary Genres
• Conflict within Postcolonial Studies
• Conflict, Empire and Postcolonialism

Proposals for individual papers (20 mins) or panels (60 mins) should be sent directly to the conference organiser, Ole Birk Laursen (O.B.Laursen [at] open.ac.uk), by Monday 19 April 2010. The Day Conference is intended specifically as a forum for Postgraduate students and early career scholars; do encourage your PhD students and postdoctoral research assistants to offer papers or to attend.

CFP: First Annual International Crime, Media & Popular Culture Studies Conference, Indiana State U (Sept. 2; Oct. 5-7)

This conference was announced on the Comics Scholars list, but here's some additional information. However, for detailed instructions on submitting proposals, click here for the complete conference CFP.

Call for papers:

First Annual International
Crime, Media & Popular Culture Studies Conference
A Cross Disciplinary Exploration

October 5th, 6th & 7th 2009

Conference Registration Table will be Open in Conference Hotel Lobby
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Indiana State University
Terre Haute, Indiana

Sponsored by:
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Indiana State University

Conference Chair:
Franklin T. Wilson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Indiana State University

Conference Administrative Assistant:
Ericka Schneider
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Indiana State University

Conference Goals

The Annual International Crime, Media and Popular Culture Studies Conference was established to encourage an international cross-disciplinary exchange between both academic scholars and practitioners who are engaged in research, teaching and practices associated with crime, media and popular culture. The conference serves as a forum for the dissemination of knowledge associated with these areas of study in an effort to engender further growth of the discipline among students, academicians and practitioners.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Wednesday, September 2, 2009
*Early abstract submission is recommended

REGISTRATION/PAYMENT DEADLINE: Wednesday, September 2, 2009

*Everyone planning on attending the conference, whether presenting or just attending, must register and pay a registration fee in order to gain access to conference presentations.

*If you are presenting, failure to register and to pay registration fee by this date will result in removal from program.

*If you are from ISU you only need to register if you are presenting.

*If you are just attending you must show your ISU ID Card at the door.

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Keynote Speaker
Taylor Mali

Featured Speakers

Jeff Ferrell, Ph.D. Texas Christian University	Victor E. Kappeler, Ph.D. Eastern Kentucky University
David L. Altheide, Ph.D. Arizona State University	Frankie Bailey, Ph.D. University at Albany
Brett A. Mervis University of South Florida	Gregory Snyder, Ph.D. Baruch College, CUNY
Nickie Phillips, Ph.D. St. Francis University	Staci Strobl, Ph.D. John Jay College
Robert D. Weide New York University	Vikas Kumar Gumbhir, Ph.D. Gonzaga University

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REGISTRATION FEES

*Includes free access to lunch time and panel session snacks, Taylor Mali’s evening performance and any other on campus performance that may be scheduled as part of the conference.

Registration Categories
Presenter - $120.00
Non-Presenter Attendee - $140.00
Student Not from ISU (Presenter or Non-Presenter) - $70.00
ISU Faculty and/or Graduate Student Presenter - $40.00

REGISTRATION/PAYMENT DEADLINE: Wednesday, September 2, 2009
*Failure to register and to pay registration fee by this date will result in removal from program.

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SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

All abstracts and payments must be submitted on-line through the International Crime, Media and Popular Culture Studies Conference website. A submission does not guarantee that your paper or poster will be accepted for presentation at the conference. Please retain hard copies of both abstract acceptance confirmations and registration/payment confirmation. On the website you will be asked to indicate the type of submission you wish to make. Your choices are the following:

• Individual Paper Presentations (Panel Presentation): Submissions for a regular session presentation must include a title and abstract (approximately 200 words), with author information including contact information.
• Poster Presentations: Submissions for poster presentations must include a title and abstract (approximately 200 words), with author information including contact information. Posters should display data, policy analysis, or theoretical work in a visually appealing poster format to encourage interactive communication. All poster sessions will be held late Monday afternoon.

GUIDELINES FOR ONLINE SUBMISSIONS

When you submit your paper through the abstract submission, you will need to select one of the 14 primary categories listed below as well as one of the 5 subcategories. Your choice will be important in determining the kind of panel on which you are placed, and it will also aid in avoiding time conflicts for panels on similar topics when possible.

Only original papers may be presented; papers that have been published or presented elsewhere may not be presented. Submissions are interpreted as meaning that the proposed presentation satisfies these conditions.

Here are a few guidelines that may help you in selecting the most appropriate category and subcategory:

1. Category: In making your selection, focus on the aspect of your paper that you would describe as your primary concern in selecting the broad category. For example, if you would like to present a paper titled, “Bob Dylan and Social Justice” you might submit under: Music Categories: Music Literature Graphic Novels (Comic Books) Print Media Film Television Internet Internet News Print News Televised News Video Games Graffiti Clothing Other

2. Subcategory: When choosing your subcategory select the category that best fits your paper. For example, if you would like to present a paper titled, “City Ordinances and the Death of the Street Musician” you might choose the subcategory of Policy or Legal depending on the focus. The sub-categories will be used to help better determine the fit for panels. Subcategories Policy Focus Practice Focus Legal Focus Theory Focus Other

ABSTRACTS: All submissions must include abstracts limited to 200 words and should describe the general theme of the presentation and, where relevant, the methods and results. All submissions must include complete contact information and the aforementioned category and subcategory selection.

SUBMISSION and REGISTRATION PAYMENT DEADLINE:

Wednesday September 2, 2009
(Failure to register by this date will result in the removal of your paper from the program)

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APPEARANCES ON PROGRAM

The Conference will be held three full days and nights, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Conference Registration Table will be Open in Conference Hotel Lobby Sunday, October 4th, 2009 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Conference organizers cannot honor personal preferences for day and time of presentations.

EQUIPMENT

LCD projectors will be available for all panel presentations to facilitate computer-based presentations (especially Power Point). While presenters do not need to bring their own personal computers Power Point presentations should be saved on either a CD or portable Jump/Flash Drive. Further, Power Point presentations should be formatted in MS Windows 2003 or 2007. In addition, all panel sessions will have overhead projector access. If you will require MAC applications please indicate this when you submit abstract.

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Again, visit the conference website for complete information.

Image credit: Conference website.

Wizard World University-Chicago and Philadephia (Comic Book Convention Conference Series )

The Institute for Comics Studies is soliciting proposals for presentations, book talks, slide talks, roundtables, professional focus discussion panels, workshops and other panels centered around comics or comics related areas of study for Wizard World University-Philadelphia and Wizard World University-Chicago, the academic tracks of Wizard World Comic Book Conventions.

Panels that include participation by comics industry professionals are especially encouraged. ICS will provide assistance with recruiting professionals for participation in WWU panels.

Wizard World University represents the Institute for Comics Studies’ mission to promote the study, understanding, and cultural legitimacy of comics and to support the discussion and dissemination of this study and understanding via public venues.

Proposals deadline: May 21st, 2009 (Chicago), or June 6th (Philadelphia).

Submit your 100-200 word abstract with the words "Wizard World University-Chicago" in the subject line to hamiwill[at]gmail.com.

Submit proposals for WWU-Philadelphia to:
http://www.hsu.edu/form.aspx?ekfrm=40054

CFP: El Paso in the Comics II: The Southwest in the Comics (grad. conference: Aug. 20; Feb. 23, 2010)

Posted on behalf of James Bucky Carter, University of Texas at El Paso.

El Paso in the Comics II:
The Southwest in the Comics

Graduate students in all fields of study are invited to submit 200-word abstracts to the second-annual El Paso in the Comics conference and event, to be held on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso, February 23, 2010.Papers on all aspects of comics scholarship, theory, and pedagogy will be given attention, but those that deal with issues related to artists, creators, characters and/or themes associated with the American Southwest and/or Hispanic/Chicano culture in comics will be given top priority.

Abstracts should include name, e-mail, affiliation (university and program), proposed paper title and 200-word description. Presentations should run no more than 20 minutes.

Send abstract to:

Dr. James B. Carter
Re: El Paso in the Comics Conference
113 Hudspeth Hall
UTEP English Department
500 W. University Ave.
El Paso, TX 79912

Or electronically to: Jbcarter2[@]utep.edu.

The deadline for abstracts is August 20, 2009.

The academic portion of the event will take place in the morning. A creators' roundtable will follow in the mid-afternoon, featuring the many local studios and creators of the El Paso/Juarez region discussing their work with members of the community. The evening will wrap up with a keynote speech by celebrated comics artist and writer Jaime Hernandez of Love and Rockets fame.

Conference: Academic Perspectives on Comics, Manga & Graphic Novels - Sweden, April 16-18:

Academic Perspectives on Comics, Manga & Graphic Novels
as Intercultural & Intermedial Phenomena
The Forum for Intermedial Studies
Växjö University, Sweden
April 16-18 2009

Check the conference website for lots of information, including abstracts as well as a PDF of the Preliminary programme. The keynote speakers will be Paul Gravett (United Kingdom), Thierry Groensteen (France), and Helena Magnusson (Sweden).

This reminder courtesy of Fredrik Strömberg, who notes that this will be "the first major academic conference on comics in Sweden."

Does anyone have a spare plane ticket to Europe they're willing to donate? :-)

Image Credit: A.K. Westin