CFP: UF Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, Gainesville, Florida, on March 21-22, 2009

[Jonathan M Hall]

Perhaps Joe Murphy can give us more sense of what is planned!
jmh



From: H-Net Announcements
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=163800

Convergences: Comics, Culture and Globalization
Location: Florida, United States
Call for Papers
Date: 2008-12-01
Date Submitted: 2008-09-04
Announcement ID: 163800


The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is  
pleased to announce
the 2008 UF Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels: "Convergences:  
Comics,
Culture and Globalization," which will be held in Gainesville,  
Florida, on March 21-22,
2009.

This seventh annual conference on comics will focus on issues of  
globalization and
reception. Comics are, now more than ever, an international  
phenomenon, but
scholarly accounts of comics are often limited by an exclusive focus  
on examples
from a single national or continental comics industry. This problem  
is exacerbated
by the scarcity of translations. Furthermore, one of the many  
obstacles facing the
emergent discipline of comics studies is the difficulty of  
communication between
scholars working in different national and cultural contexts. This  
conference is
intended as a small step toward meeting these challenges. The goal of  
this conference,
therefore, is to consider the history and reception of comics on a  
global level.
We are interested in papers that focus on international comics and  
animation markets,
cross-cultural reception of comics, and the differential status of  
comics in different
cultures (e.g. as a children's/mass medium or as a mainstream form of  
literature).
Here we are using "comics" in its broadest sense, embracing  
animation, manga, anime,
graphic novels, webcomics, political cartoons, and even some "fine  
art." In addition to
theoretically grounded work, we encourage submission of archival and  
historical research.

Special guests will include Susan Napier (From Impressionism to  
Anime: Japan as
Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West), Jessica Abel (La  
Perdida), Matt Madden
(99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style) and Sara Cooper  
(Founder, MLA Discussion
Group on Cuban and Cuban Diaspora Cultural Production).

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

* The reception of comics outside their original cultural context,  
both by fans
(e.g. manga fandom in the United States) and by creators (e.g.  
American comics'
influence on the development of manga and BD, the "nouvelle manga"  
movement).
* Connections between comics form and cultural status. How have views  
of the
cultural position of comics (e.g. as a children's versus an adult  
medium or as a
mass-cultural versus a literary medium) evolved differently in  
various cultures?
What does this have to do with the formal properties of the medium,  
such as
sequentiality and hybrid image-textuality?
* Comics as a global market: migrations of talent between multiple  
comics industries
(e.g. the Spanish and Filipino "invasions" of British and American  
comics in the 1960s
and 1970s, the Korean influence on U.S. animation) and cross-national  
collaborations
(e.g. mangakas working for Marvel and DC).
* Comics studies as a global discipline. What barriers exist to the  
study of comics
from a global perspective and to collaborations between comics  
scholars from
different cultures? How might such barriers be removed?
* The impact of the internet on the global comics market. How have  
scanlations
and filesharing helped or hindered global comics industries?
* Canon formation and expansion. What happens when works from unfamiliar
cultural contexts (e.g. Persepolis and Epileptic) enter a national  
comics canon?
* Comics and travel/tourism, e.g. in Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage.
* Comics and issues of postcolonial identity, e.g. in Abouet &  
Oubrerie's Aya,
Baru's Road to America, Horrocks's Hicksville.
* Translations of comics, both official and unofficial, e.g.  
scanlation. What are the
unique difficulties and advantages of comics translation as opposed  
to prose translation?
What are the unique difficulties and approaches to translating comics  
from different
cultures? How, if at all, do "official" and "unofficial" translators  
approach comics
translations differently?

Abstract submissions should be approximately 250-500 words in length.  
Presentations
will be 15 minutes with 5 minutes of question and answer.

The deadline for abstract submissions is December 1, 2008. Abstracts  
or questions
should be submitted to Aaron Kashtan at akashtan at english.ufl.edu or  
Tania
Darlington at tdarlington1 at ufl.edu. See the conference website for  
schedules and
additional information: .
	Tania Darlington
Department of English
University of Florida

Email: tdarlington1 at ufl.edu
Visit the website at http://global.comic-studies.org/