CFP: Transitions: Mapping New Directions in Comics Studies
CFP for Transitions 4 - a one-day symposium promoting new research and multi-disciplinary academic study of comics/ comix/ manga/ bande dessinee and other forms of sequential art, now in its fourth year at Birkbeck.
Transitions 4 is a one-day symposium promoting new research and multi-disciplinary academic study of comics/ comix/ manga/ bande dessinée and other forms of sequential art, now in its fourth year at Birkbeck.
When? 26 October, 2013
Where? School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX
Keynote: Dr. Ann Miller (University of Leicester, joint editor of European Comic Art)
Respondent: Dr. Roger Sabin (Central St. Martins, University of the Arts London)
Transitions is part of Comica, the London International Comics Festival
Transitions is currently the only regular academic comics event based in London. The symposium provides a platform where different perspectives and methodologies can be brought together and shared. As an event devoted to promoting new research into comics in all their forms the symposium provides a forum for research from postgraduate students and early career lecturers. Comics studies occupy a unique multi-disciplinary middle-space, one that encourages cross-disciplinary pollination and a convergence of distinct knowledges: literary and cultural studies, visual arts and media, modern languages, sociology, geography and more.
By thinking about comics across different disciplines, we hope to stimulate and provoke debate, to address a wide spectrum of questions, to map new trends, and to provide a space for dialogue and further collaboration to emerge.
We welcome abstracts for twenty minute papers of 250 - 300 words. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
International iterations: manga, bande dessinée , fumetti etc. – children’s comics – superheroes – non-fiction comics – the (im)materiality of comics – audience research – formalist approaches – cultural histories/geographies –adaptation/ remediation – autographics – early comics – comic strips – small press –alternative comics/ underground commix – comics narratologies – political comics – comics and cultural theory – contexts of production and circulation - audiences – comics and the archive – subjectivity in comics – graphic medicine – fan subcultures – comics as historiography – key creators...
Proposals for papers should be sent as Word documents, with a short biography appended. Abstracts should be submitted by the 30th of July 2013 to Hallvard, Nina, and Tony at transitions.symposium@gmail.com.