CFP: Voyages / Int'l Graphic Novel and Comics Conf & Int'l Bande Dessinée Society Conf / Paris (Dec 31; Jun 22-27)

Call for Papers

Voyages

Sixth International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference /

Ninth International Bande Dessinée Society Conference

in collaboration with the joint conference of

l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art,

l’Université du Québec à Montréal et l’Université Lumière Lyon 2

Venue: University of London Institute in Paris/

Institut national d’histoire de l’art

Monday 22nd – Saturday 27th June 2015

From their earliest manifestations, comic art characters have travelled the globe and beyond. Whether realist or fantastical, drawn to educate or to amuse, comics have used their considerable and unique expressive power to depict journeys, both physically and mentally, to "elsewhere." As the medium has evolved worldwide into one attracting both an adult and a juvenile audience, this relationship to the voyage has diversified, as recently-developed trends such as “graphic journalism” attest. This conference will focus on the relationship of the sequential art form to the voyage and study representations of travel across the history of the medium up to the present day. The conference intends to consider the notion of "voyage" in a broad sense, to include related notions concerned both with geographical movement – such as migration, exile or deployment – and with the psychic journey.

With this inclusive framework in mind the organising committee for the joint International Graphic Novel and Comics conference and International Bande Dessinée Society (IBDS) conference welcome abstracts on all areas of scholarship relating to comics, the graphic novel, and bande dessinée.

Abstracts of 150-200 words in advance of a 20-minute paper, as well as questions and expressions of interest, should be sent to:
voyagesconference@gmail.com
or
c.macleod@ulip.lon.ac.uk

Deadline: 31st December 2014

CFP: Illustration and Narrative Construction (Sept. 10; March 28-29)

As posted on SHARP-L.

International Conference

Illustration and Narrative Construction

Hosted by the Université Paris-Diderot

28-29 March 2014

At a time of growing academic interest for the adaptation of fictional narratives across a range of different contemporary media (film, TV series, comic books, graphic novels), we would like to engage with illustration as the earliest form of visual adaptation of novelistic works.

The general aim of this conference is to explore illustration in its specifically narrative dimension. The notion of narrative construction provides an interesting paradigm to analyse the relationship between text and image within illustrated works of fiction. Though each illustration may be said to have a narrative potential of its own which is revealed by the eye perusing it, it is the sequential dimension of narrative which will be our particular focus here.

The object of the conference is to examine how a series of images accompanying a narrative does not simply illustrate separate moments singled out from the text but forms a visual narrative through its dynamic relationship with the text. We shall thus study the different processes at stake and the ways in which images, in their three-fold articulation to the work as a whole—namely to the passage which they illustrate, to what precedes and follows in the narrative, and to the sequence of interlinked images—suggest a reading of a text and open up one of its narrative possibilities.

The conference will focus on European novels from the early modern period to the present.

Possible topics include:

• The different illustrated editions of a text, targeting various readerships (bibliophiles, young people, etc.) and the type of visual narrative constructed to address each reading public
• Diachronic analyses of the illustrated versions of a single text and of the transformations of narrative over time
• Illustration as counterpoint to the text, constructing a parallel narrative, sometimes even contradicting the text
• Serialized novels and the specific narrative dynamic put into play by serialization
• The special cases of graphic novels and comic books adapted from works of fiction and the redefinition of the narrative dynamic brought about by these media

Submission for papers including an abstract (300 words maximum) and a short biographical notice should be sent to both Carole Cambray, Université Paris-Diderot (carolecambray@yahoo.fr) and Xavier Giudicelli, Université de Reims-Champagne Ardenne (xgiudicelli@yahoo.fr)

Deadline for proposals : 10 September 2013.

CFP: Texts, Forms and Readings in Europe (18th-21st Centuries) [SHARP; France] (Dec. 7; May 22-24)

While this CFP doesn't explicitly mention comics, there certainly seems to be room for work on the form here...

Call for Papers

Texts, Forms and Readings in Europe

(18th – 21st Centuries)

22-24 May 2013 - Université du Maine, Le Mans, France

(SHARP International Focussed conference)

This conference will question the relevance of the notion of a common European reader with regard to the evolution of reading practices from the so-called reading revolution in the 18th century until the current digital revolution. Europe is known as the birthplace of books, and it remains a major seat of book publishing and translating. Since an early stage its strongly established book culture has implied the durable circulation of books. This tradition has contributed to cultural exchanges and to the creation of reading communities across national borders. A relationship to the book and to reading, as well as their promotion and enhancement, seems to be a common value and a significant component of European identity. However, book policies and reading practices in Europe have varied from one region to another throughout history. Such idiosyncrasies – whether regional, national, social, economic, cultural or legal – make European identity recognizable even though nowadays globalization and the digital revolution tend to reduce those specificities.

Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier’s A History of Reading in the West (Polity Press, 1999) has taught us that reading is not an abstract action: it realizes itself through practices, situations, and readers, who “are never faced with an abstract, ideal text detached from everything material: they manipulate objects; they listen to words whose modalities govern the way they read or listen, but in the process also govern ways of comprehending the text.” Taking into account the strong link between texts, forms and readings as well as the fact that reading has not remained immutable, this interdisciplinary conference will study the elements of continuity and disruption that are characteristic of the uses of texts and of reading practices in 18th-21st-century Europe.

The conference welcomes proposals on the following topics:

• The relationship between reading practices and the evolution of printed material forms.
• The effect of new formats (audio, digital etc.) on reading theories and practices.
• The relationship between new social issues, new groups of readers and new kinds of reading practices.
• The correlation between cultural policies, educational policies, national identities and reading.
• The existence, resistance or erosion of potential European reading models.
• New and former sites of communal or solitary reading.
• Access to science and knowledge through books and reading.
• The role and issues of image and non-book printed material in informal reading practices.
• The representation of reading in the arts (film, literature, painting, photography).

We have planned a pre-workshop for early career researchers (including PhD students and post-docs) interested in all aspects of children’s, teenagers’ and young adults’ reading practices. This pre-workshop will consist of a poster session with a moderator.

Recommendations:

• Proposals should adhere to the aforementioned spatiotemporal frame and may consist of a case study or of a broader theoretical approach.
• Papers with a comparative approach are particularly welcome.
• The languages of the conference are English and French.
• The proposals (a 500-word abstract in French or in English, specifying the theoretical and methodological context, sources, etc.) will be reviewed by the program committee.
• Papers will be considered for further publication.

Proposals for 20-minutes presentations should be sent to the program committee before December 7th, 2012: Prof. Brigitte Ouvry-Vial Textes-Formes-Lectures2013@univ-lemans.fr

Proposals of posters (A1) for the pre-workshop should also be sent to Corinna Norrick-Rühl norrick@uni-mainz.de

Schedule:

• Deadline for submission of proposals: 7th December 2012
• Notification of acceptance: 15th January 2013
• Deadline for confirmation of participation: 1st February 2013Practical details (registration fees etc.) will be sent with the notification of acceptance

Guest speakers:
Opening lecture by Prof. Roger Chartier (Collège de France)
Closing lecture by Prof. Bernard Lahire (Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines)

Program committee: Laurent Bazin (University Versailles - Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines), Jean-François Botrel(University Rennes II), Lodovica Braida (University Milano), Hans-Jurgen Lüsebrink (University Sarreland), BrigitteOuvry-Vial (University Maine), Nathalie Richard (University Maine), Jürgen Ritte (University Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Institutional partners: SHARP; Université du Maine (Le Mans) ; Lab « Langues, Littératures, Linguistique » Universities of Angers and Maine; Dipartimento di Studi storici from Università degli Studi Milano and APICE; Ville du Mans ; Carré Plantagenêt, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire (le Mans).

Location: Le Mans is located 50 mn from Paris by train. In the middle of Region Pays-de-la-Loire, it is famous for its white wines, its Rillettes special pâté, and aside from the formula One race « 24 heures du Mans », it features several theater companies and a stunning historical district, Cité Plantagenêt (the film Cyrano de Bergerac was shot there), where conference participants will enjoy crawling.

Thank you for your attention and proposals,

Yours,
Brigitte Ouvry-Vial
Professeur des Universités
Université du Maine (Le Mans, France)

PR - Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic, by Joel E. Vessels

A press release I received today. I've met Joel Vessels, and I expect this book to be a must-read.

Drawing France:

French Comics and the Republic

By Joel E. Vessels

University Press of Mississippi

ISBN 978-1-60473-444-7, hardback $50

For Immediate Release

Rise of Bande Dessinée transformed French politics and history

In France, Belgium, and other Francophone countries, the comic strip - called bande dessinée (BD) in French - has long been considered a major art form capable of addressing cultural issues. Graphic narratives were deemed worthy of canonization and critical study for decades before the academy and the press embraced comics in the United States.

The place that BD holds in the culture today, however, belies the contentious political route the art form has had in France. In Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic (University Press of Mississippi) author Joel E. Vessels examines the trek of BD from its course of being considered a fomenter of rebellion, to an art suitable only for semi-literates, to an impediment to children’s education, and most recently to its use as a bellwether of social concerns in mainstream culture.

In the mid-1800s, alarmists feared political caricatures might incite the ire of an illiterate working class. To counter this notion, proponents yoked the art to a particular articulation of “Frenchness” based on literacy and reason. With the post-World War II economic upswing, French consumers saw BD as a way to navigate the changes brought by modernization.

After bande dessinée came to be understood as a compass for the masses, the government, especially François Mitterand’s administration, brought comics increasingly into “official” culture. In tracing this development, Vessels argues that BD are central to the formation of France’s self-image and a self-awareness of what it means to be French.

Drawing France is one of the first texts to directly examine the French government’s relationship to bande dessinée and popular visual culture to analyze the political identity of the modern nation-state.

Joel E. Vessels, Astoria, New York, is instructor of history at Nassau Community College. His work has appeared in International Journal of Comic Art and Contemporary French Civilization.

–30–

For more information contact Clint Kimberling, Publicist, ckimberling@mississippi.edu

Read more about Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic at http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1296

The Cartoon International Meeting [RIDEP] January 18-20, 2008 (Carquefou, France)

Posted by the courtesy of press agent Caroline Violot. This looks to be a wide-ranging and important event; readers in France are encouraged to attend!

9èmes Rencontres Internationales du Dessin de Presse (RIDEP)
Carquefou (44) les 18-19-20 janvier 2008

THE CARTOON INTERNATIONAL MEETING will be held in Carquefou (France close to Nantes) from January 18-20. It will feature twenty-five cartoonists, including Chinese cartoonists from Peking and nineteen cartoonists from France. Plantu will appear with his "Cartooning for Peace" exhibit, which was shown in ONU.

The meeting will speak about freedom of press and human rights with guests from Amnesty International, Reporters sans frontières [Reporters without Borders] and of cartoons with the FECO....

Click here for more information.

en français...

La Chine et les dessinateurs chinois à Carquefou
Pour leur 9ème édition les RIDEP prennent les couleurs de la Chine pendant 3 jours sur le site de la Fleuriaye à Carquefou (métropole nantaise).

Une délégation de dessinateurs fera le voyage spécialement de Chine avec Xia Li Chuan, qui a réalisé l'affiche des RIDEP 2008, et ses confrères Fu Hong Ge, Xia Da Chuan, Xu Pengfei, Zhang Yaoning, Zheng Wei Hua...

A travers leurs dessins les plus grands noms du dessin de presse chinois et français (Ricord, Plantu, Mulatier Frap, Dominique Lemarié, Chaunu, Biz, Million, Alex, Alexis, Thieboly,...) permettront à tous de décrypter les médias mais aussi la culture et les codes d'un pays au coeur de l'actualité internationale.

Un pays, un dessin, un message...
Abritant un cinquième de l'humanité, la Chine connaît de profonds bouleversements et un développement économique sans précédent. Mais à quel prix ? Censure, répression, crise écologique, économie sans régulation... les Droits de l'Homme et la liberté d'expression ne s'accordent pas toujours avec les réalités de la Chine d'aujourd'hui. Avec les dessinateurs qui dessineront la Chine et les chinois en toute liberté et en collaboration avec des experts de la Chine et du dessin de presse, nous apporterons un éclairage sur ce pays aux multiples facettes.

En route vers la Chine !
3 jours de rencontres et d'échanges uniques sous le trait de crayon des dessinateurs !

Au programme :

• Animations : films, jeux chinois, cérémonie du thé, calligraphie


• des expositions de photos (revue Mad in China par les journalistes et photographes du collectif Tendance Floue, photos du prix Niepce 2007 Bertrand Meunier), l’Exposition Dessins pour la Paix de Plantu, et le tour du monde de l’actualité avec plus de 250 dessins de presse exposés
  
• des conférences-débats sur des thématiques actuelles : le métier de dessinateur de presse, les droits humains en Chine, la liberté de la presse et les Jeux Olympiques à Pékin, la Chine à deux vitesses, une Chine verte pour demain ?

En collaboration avec plus de 25 dessinateurs, des journalistes, des photographes, des sinologues, Amnesty International et Reporters Sans Frontières, la FECO (Fédération des Organisations de Dessinateurs), Marianne, la FNAC, le CLEMI...

Contact Presse: Caroline Violot Communication, 06 22 72 17 47, 02 51 800 873, cviolot @ orange.fr