New Narrative IV: Image and Spectacle (March 15; May 4-6)

New Narrative IV: Image and Spectacle

University of Toronto 4-6 May 2011

Keynote speaker: Diane Obomsawin (author of Kaspar)

Human beings make display worlds to others in performances that engage and generate images. The spectacle of performance leads to many kinds of reflection—from performativity to epistemology, from theories of history to literary and aesthetic theory, from cultural criticism to palaeography. It extends ultimately to examining the role of reflection (speculation) and criticism of images and their worlds.

We are again soliciting papers on a wide range of issues that fall generally under the rubric of “image and spectacle.” The focus of the New Narrative has been graphic novels, comic art, and related visual media; but we also welcome papers from a variety of fields: English, Philosophy, History, Art, Film, Cultural Studies, and Political Science (among others). Essays may engage the following (incomplete) list:

• representation and photography
• web design and on-line comix
• historical repertoires of images
• Guy Debord and the spectacle
• images in archives
• political manipulations of images
• the speculative and the spectacular
• bande dessinée & European comix
• illustrations in (literary) novels
• illustrated and multi-media works

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 (in .doc or .rtf, not .docx).

Deadline for proposals is 15 March 2011 (responses by 31 March 2011)

Questions? Submissions? Email me!
Dr Andrew Lesk, Department of English, University of Toronto
E-mail: andrew.lesk@utoronto.ca

A full colour version of this CFP will be posted soon.

Feel free to distribute widely.

Prior year conferences are at http://andrewlesk.com/conferences.html

(The Toronto Comics Arts Festival takes place on May 7 and 8. See http://Torontocomics.com)