CFP: Comics and the American Southwest and Borderland / collection (Jan. 15)

CFP:

Comics and the American Southwest

and Borderland

The editors of Comics and the American Southwest and Borderlands seek chapter submissions for this collection. We hope the collection accomplishes for the Southwest and Border region what Costello and Whitted’s Comics and the U.S. South achieved for that region and Southern studies via mining, creating, and illuminating the intersections of comics scholarship and academic writing on the Southwestern United States, the U.S-Mexico border, and their literatures, identities, and cultures.

Submissions might consider:

• The impact of comics creators from the Southwest or Border region.
• Characters, titles, or storylines set in and/or influenced by the Southwest or Border region (Hulk, Ghost Rider, El Diablo, Blue Beetle, The Rangers, etc).
• The work of Jaxon/Jack Jackson.
• General depictions of the Southwest or Borderlands in comics.
• The New Frontier and the New Southwest.
• Examinations of how non-American artists have represented the American West (Charlier, Moebius, Blain, etc.)
• U.S-Mexico relations in comics.
• Ecocritical elements in comics set in or making use of the space of the Southwest/Borderlands.
• Immigration; citizenship; nationalism in comics from or about the region.
• Race, gender, sex and ethnic studies in comics from or about the region.
• How comics challenge, support, or otherwise interact with notions of the region and its literature as presented by Tom Lynch, Eric Gary Anderson, Gloria Anzaldua, and others.
• Nationalism; politics; violence in comics from or featuring the region.
• Liminal spaces/Nepantla; contact zones; politics of the region in comics.
• Westerns.
• Comics' treatment of NAFTA, the drug war and/or borderland violence.
• Adaptations of Southwest, Chicano, Latina, or Mexican literature.
• Chicana/a or Latina/o studies as frames for analysis of comics.
• Class and economic issues in comics from or featuring the region.
• Depictions of Native peoples from the region in comics.
• Interviews with comics creators on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Submissions may explore comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, web comics, and editorial cartoons or explore subject across media as long as comics are a major focus. Submissions may focus on any genre.

Essays are due to both Dr. James Bucky Carter (jbcarter777@gmail.com) and Dr. Derek Parker Royal (Derek@DerekRoyal.com) by March 28, 2014, but the editors request abstracts of no more than 500 words no later than 2 weeks before the deadline, with a preference of seeing abstracts by January 15, 2014.

http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/53497

CFP: The Ethics of War and Conflict in Graphic Narratives / session; Netherlands (October 1; April 3-4)

As posted on COMIXSCHOLARS-L

 

Call for Papers:

The Ethics of War and Conflict

in Graphic Narratives

European Association for

American Studies (EAAS)

The Hague, Netherlands

April 3-6 2014

This session seeks papers by Americanists from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds who are interested in the ways that graphic narratives address the ethical dimensions of war and conflict. We are using the term “graphic narrative” (cf. Chute and deKoven) here to refer to a variety of genres in comic book format because it usefully covers comic strips, superhero comics, graphic reportage, autobiographical comics, etc. From the human rights reportage of Joe Sacco to the graphic memoirs of Art Spiegelman and Keiji Nakazawa, from the rhetorics of justice that structure superhero comics to the ways that culture wars get framed through political cartooning, all forms of comics art both reflect and participate in the production of various ethical considerations. These ethical considerations include but are not limited to: discourses of justice, recognition, and human rights; the politics of spectatorship and emotion; the costs of war on both the private level and in the public realm; the politics of nationalism, citizenship, and belonging; the construction of masculinity/femininity in the context of war; racial and ethnic stereotyping in war-related comics.

Proposals for this session can address any form of the comics medium from any time period and can also focus on non-American comics, although proposals must demonstrate how the topic comments or frames “America” in some way. We are particularly interested in papers that examine the links between comics ethics and comics form, the way the form itself (frames, gutters, drawing style, sequential effects, the interaction between words and images, the connections between drawing and photography etc.) has the potential to speak to larger ethical considerations. In addition, we are also particularly interested in papers that contextualize comics by using critical and cultural theory.

Papers can address the following, but we are also open to other, related research questions as well:

• How do particular graphic narratives frame issues of war and conflict, and in turn how do these frames shape images of America?
• How has the medium of comics been used as a tool for political propaganda during states of war and conflict?
• Are there particular aspects of the medium itself that speak in unique ways to the ethics of war, justice, and/or conflict? To related issues of trauma, witnessing, and spectatorship?
• How do particular graphic narratives contribute to American public culture’s ideas of human rights, justice, citizenship, and/or recognition?
• How might various cultural theories help us understand the links between comics, ethics, and images of America?

Note: Speakers must be members of their national Association for American Studies if there exists one in their home country. Speakers from Canada, Israel, Japan, and the USA must be members of their respective American Studies Associations, or of another organization with an appropriate focus (OAH, APSA, etc.).

All presentations will be 20-minutes. The conference allows for up to 2 sessions with 3-4 speakers in each session. We can therefore accept up to 8 papers.

Please send an abstract between 300 and 500 words by October 1st to the workshop chairs:
Rebecca Scherr: rebecca.scherr@ilos.uio.no  
Mihaela Precup: mihaela.precup@americanstudies.ro

CFP: Comics and the American Southwest and Borderland (collection; Jan. 31)

CFP:

Comics and

the American Southwest and Borderland

The editors of Comics and the American Southwest and Borderlands seek submissions for this collection, which has interest from the University Press of Mississippi. We hope the collection does for the Southwest and Border region what Costello and Whitted’s Comics and the U.S. South did for that region and Southern studies via mining, creating, and illuminating the intersections of comics scholarship and established academic writing on the Southwestern United States, the U.S-Mexico border, and their literatures, identities, and cultures.

Submissions might consider:

• The impact of comics creators from the Southwest or Border region
•  The work of Jaxon/Jack Jackson, specifically
• Characters or storylines set in and/or influenced by the Southwest or Border region
• Depictions of the Southwest or Borderlands in comics
• Examinations of how non-American artists have represented the American West (Charlier, Moebius, Blain, etc.)
• U.S-Mexico relations in comics
• Immigration; citizenship; nationalism in comics from or about the region
• Race, gender, sex and ethnic studies in comics from or about the region
• Nationalism; politics; violence in comics from or featuring the region
• Liminal spaces; contact zones; politics of the region in comics
• Westerns Adaptations of Southwest, Chicano, Latina, or Mexican literature
• Chicana/a or Latina/o studies as frames for analysis of comics
• Class and economic issues in comics from or featuring the region
• Depictions of Native peoples from the region in comics

Submissions may explore comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, web comics, and editorial cartoons. Submissions may focus on any genre.

Please send 300-500 word abstracts to both Dr. James Bucky Carter (jbcarter777@gmail.com) and Dr. Derek Parker Royal (Derek@DerekRoyal.com) by January 31, 2013.

CFP: Comic Books and American Cultural History (collection; 12/20)

Call for Papers:

Comic Books and

American Cultural History

Essays are currently being solicited for Comic Books and American Cultural History, a new anthology that will examine the ways in which comic books can be used to help us understand the history of the United States. Each essay of this proposed book will focus on a particular comic book, story/story arc, or graphic novel as a tool for analyzing some aspect of its original cultural and historical context. The essays in this anthology will not focus on the history of comic books per se, but rather on the history of the United States, with comic books being used as primary texts to support specific interpretations of American history. Because of this emphasis on the connections between comic books and America’s past, Comic Books and American Cultural History will prove to be a useful book for comics scholars, historians, and history teachers who want to integrate more popular culture into their courses.

The field of comics studies has seen a proliferation of book-length works in the last twenty years, but few of those books have examined American cultural history. For example, Of Comics and Men, by Jean-Paul Gabilliet, includes a very thorough explanation of the production and distribution history of American comic books, but there is less analysis of the actual content of the comic books themselves. Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation does examine some specific stories, but his work is a survey and, as such, cannot go into much depth about any one historical moment. In Secret Identity Crisis, Matthew Costello’s focus on the Cold War allows him to analyze his sources deeply, but other events and comics that do not fit into his framework are sometimes ignored. Comic Books and American Cultural History seeks to build off of these important works while also expanding the scope of comics scholarship by bringing together analyses on a wider variety of topics than what is possible in any of these books. In this way, Comic Books and American Cultural History will be especially useful as a collection of case studies demonstrating the ways in which comic books can be useful primary sources for the study of American cultural history.

The essays in Comic Books and American Cultural History will examine many different comic books and many different topics in American history. Possible sources can range from the 1930s to the present, and the collection will include essays focusing on mainstream, underground, alternative, and independent comics. Historical topics might feature discussions of the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and 9/11, all examined from a cultural history perspective. Essays about aspects of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation will be especially encouraged. The more specific the essay, the better it will fit into this collection in that it will allow for greater depth than would be possible with a more broadly defined primary text and a more broadly defined historical connection.

Completed essays will be between 5,000 and 7,000 words long.

Please send 500 word abstracts, complete contact information, and brief biographies of authors (as Word documents) to:

Matthew Pustz
Economics, History, and Political Science Department
Fitchburg State University
Fitchburg, MA 01420
mpustz@fitchburgstate.edu

Abstracts are due December 20, 2010. Completed essays will be due the beginning of June 2011.