Call for papers
Traumics:
Comics Narratives of Trauma
The 11th Annual UF Conference
on Comics and Graphic Novels
April 4th-6th, 2014
Deadline: January 25, 2014
The Graduate Comics Organization at the University of Florida invites
applicants to submit proposals to the 11th UF Conference on Comics and
Graphic Novels,
"Traumics: Comics
Narratives of Trauma." The conference will be held from Friday April 4th
2014 to Sunday
April 6th 2014. Proposals are due January 25, 2014.
Traumics are, simply put, comics plus trauma. With their syntax of
panels, gutters, and pages and their use of the evocative power of image
in conjunction with the precise communication of text, comics are
uniquely suited to delivering narratives of trauma. The relationship of
trauma (especially childhood trauma) to the comics medium is a thread
that runs throughout Hillary L. Chute's 2010
Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics,
a book which is structured around exploring the works of five
autobiographical comics artists (Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Phoebe Gloeckner,
Lynda Barry, Marjane Satrapi, and Alison Bechdel). By their very
nature, comics provide a potentially ideal means through which to tell
those stories which require the fragmentation and reconstruction of
events of high drama and emotional intensity. The juxtaposition of
images on the comic page make comics what might be considered a
‘natural' fit for exploring the concept of "Remembering, repeating, and
working-through" examined so in-depth in Cathy Caruth's seminal 1996
work on trauma,
Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History.
More than two decades ago, Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-winning opus,
Maus,
changed the way much of the reading public views comics, and is now one
of the most iconic and recognizable Holocaust narratives to be studied
in the classroom or found on bookstore shelves. Since the turn of the
century, autobiographical comics like Alison Bechdel's
Fun Home, Marjane Satrapi's
Persepolis, and Phoebe Gloeckner's
Diary of a Teenage Girl have all been released to great critical acclaim.
Epileptic,
David B.'s autobiographical exploration of medical trauma, hugged the
transition from the 1900s to the 2000s, with its original French release
running from 1996 to 2003; more recently, David Small's
autobiographical
Stitches (2009) also forced a spotlight on
medical trauma, using bold, rough graphics to recount the horror of a
child's battle with cancer. Robert Kirkman's zombie survival horror
comic
The Walking Dead (which began its run in 2003 and
continues today) has captured the American cultural imagination, with
its adaptations ranging from a television show and video game to a
prominent role in the most recent Halloween Horror Nights attraction at
Universal Studios. Comics and war narratives (as well as war reporting)
have also gone hand-in-hand for many years; just this November, noted
war comics writer and artist Joe Sacco released his latest work,
The Great War,
which tells the story of the first day of the Battle of the Somme in
one continuous, 24-foot drawing. Comics have become one of the most
important and visible venues through which a 21st-century audience
understands, imagines, and works through traumatic events.
We invite presentation proposals from all disciplines on the theme of
"traumics: comics narratives of trauma." Possible topics include but
are not limited to:
- Comics and Journalism (Example: Guibert, Lefevre and Lemercier's The Photographer)
- Comics and Autobiography / Graphic Memoir (Examples: Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, David B.'s Epileptic, Phoebe Gloeckner's The Diary of a Teenage Girl and A Child's Life, David Small's Stitches)
- Comics as Blogging / In blogging (Example: Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half)
- Violence in the Comics and Cultural Responses (Examples: "mainstream" violence in Marvel and DC comics, violence and the Comics Code Authority)
- Comics Go to War / Comics About War / Comics Read and/or Written on the Front Lines (Examples: The 'Nam, Commando Comics)
- The Traumatic Oeuvre of Joe Sacco
- Art Spiegelman's Maus and its Critical Reception
- How Comics Represent Trauma / Traumatic Experiences in the Comics
- Trauma and Sexuality in the Comics (For example, in the work of Alan Moore)
- Rape and Sexual Assault in the Comics / The Discussion Thereof (See: The recent controversy surrounding Mark Millar's "rape comments")
- Trauma and Manga (For example, in the work of Osamu Tezuka and Hagio Moto)
- Childhood and Trauma in the Comics
- Childhood and Trauma in Illustrated Books and Children's Picture Books (Examples: Neil Gaiman's Coraline, Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There)
- The Imagetext of the Newspaper / How Trauma is Reported through Media
"Traumics: Comics Narratives of Trauma" will consider proposals from
graduate students, professors, independent scholars, undergraduates and
other academics, and all proposals will be judged based on merit. The
conference will be free to attend and open to the public.
Graduate papers presented at the conference will be eligible for
consideration as Best Graduate Paper. The competition is open to non-UF
graduate students and will be judged by a panel of UF professors. The
winner will be awarded $250 and an opportunity to publish the
full-length version of his or her paper in
ImageTexT. Please indicate
interest in the competition with abstract submissions.
Proposals should be between 200 and 300 words, and are due
January 25, 2014. All proposals should be submitted to
Mel Loucks at
mloucks@ufl.edu and copied to
Najwa Al-tabaa at
naltabaa@ufl.edu.
