CFP: Late Capitalism and Mere Genre / edited collection (Jan. 15)

While comics aren't mentioned specifically here, I think they could fit well.

CFP - Edited collection:
Late Capitalism and Mere Genre
Benjamin J. Robertson, University of Colorado, Boulder

I seek proposals for essays that explore the relationship between late capitalist culture/economics and texts which, in one manner or another, are “merely” generic. According to Fredric Jameson and others, late capitalism is characterized by new forms of business and financial organization, developments in media and the relationships amongst media, and planned obsolescence. By “merely generic,” I refer to those texts in any medium that seem less interested in pushing generic boundaries than in maintaining or perhaps hyperbolizing them (such as books by Robert Jordan and David Eddings) and/or belong to an obvious genre, but turn away from that broader genre in order to develop their own environments and/or conventions on massive scales (such as the expanded Stars Wars Universe). These texts may be: swiftly produced, developed in explicit and careful relation to others in their series or world, targeted at an existing audience already familiar with the genre, and crafted for easy consumption and quick obsolescence.

How do such merely generic texts define the cultural landscape of the postmodern/contemporary world? How does this cultural landscape condition them?

Possible topics include:

• The audience for merely generic texts. Can anyone enjoy them, or are they only consumable by those who have an established, if not hypertrophied, relationship to the broader genre in question?
• The development of groups of texts that predate the advent of late capitalism, but transform in some way afterwards or otherwise provide antecedents for more contemporary works, such as The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew Mysteries.
• Proprietary universes—such as the Stars Wars, Star Trek, or Dragonlance universes—and questions of authorship.
• Fan fiction and other non-canonical or heterodox narratives set within established universes.
• Problems of continuity in the mega-text.
• The relationship between such merely generic texts and gaming, whether tabletop RPGs, first-person shooters, MMORGs, or other types of gaming.
• The economic or cultural conditions that govern the production of merely generic texts, such as the nigh-injunction that, after Tolkien, works of heroic fantasy should be published as trilogies.
• Mass-produced series of books for children, such as Goosebumps and Animorphs. How do these texts prepare youngsters for subsequent late capitalist consumption?
• The shift, especially in film, from generic concerns to the logic of the tentpole and/or the franchise.
• The development of the massive multimedia text in which the same storylines develop in print, in films, on television, etc. simultaneously.
• The residue of genre in a post-generic world. With increased specialization and fragmentation in daily life, does genre make any sense as a cultural form? Does genre become, or return to being, one niche product amongst others?

Obviously, numerous other avenues of inquiry exist and many of those mentioned here dovetail with one another. Please inquire at the email address below with suggestions or ideas.

Although I will consider a range of approaches, I am especially interested in essays that situate groups of texts or series in an historical moment or cultural frame. I am less interested in thematic and formal readings of individual texts.

Please send proposals of approximately 500 words as attachments (.doc, .docx, .pdf, .rtf, or .odt) to benjamin.j.robertson@colorado.edu by 15 January 2014. Again, also feel free to contact me with questions or other concerns.

CFP: Superhero Synergies: Genre in the Age of Digital Convergence (collection; Nov. 1)

Call for Papers: Collection of Essays

"Superhero Synergies:

Genre in the Age of Digital Convergence"

Edited by

James Gilmore (UCLA) and Matthias Stork (UCLA)

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Since the late 1990s, the proliferation of digital media has opened up a seemingly infinite horizon of narrative possibilities in transmedia storytelling. Traditional ideas about the look and the texture of cinema, television, and comics have equally undergone striking revision in the age of digital convergence. New technologies--including 3-D, video on-demand, and electronic tablets--change the ways we think about media production, aesthetics, and consumption. Digital media have made popular culture a malleable entity to be modified continuously. As a result, popular media do not exist in isolation, but converge into complex multidimensional objects. The Internet further relays this multidimensionality via discussion forums, fan fiction, and video-based criticism.

Nowhere has this phenomenon been more persistent, more creative, or sparked more discussion than in the superhero genre. While the genre is home to many of the most financially successful films of the last 15 years, it has also developed life in video games, digital comics, Internet criticism, video essays, novelizations, television programs, and other forms of media. These media may speak to each other--as in a video game based on the film The Avengers which is, in turn, based on a series of Marvel comic books--or incorporate and critique forms of media--as when the television series Heroes consciously employs comic book aesthetics as a central narrative component. The superhero genre thus forms an ideal lynchpin to examine the contemporary landscape of popular media convergence.

The goal of this anthology is to explore the intricate relationship between superheroes and digital media in an era of convergence. Specifically, we encourage contributors to consider analytical, research-driven, and theoretical work that tackles the problems and possibilities of convergence culture as it relates to the experience and study of superheroes in the contemporary world of digital media. While the anthology incorporates a theoretical dimension, we predominantly seek submissions that emphasize the experience of superheroes and analysis of superhero images in this expanding and converging digital landscape.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• How do conceptions of “genre” and “narrative” change amidst the interaction of multiple digital media forms?
• Adaptation: How might superhero texts accent themselves as acts of adaptation? How do digital media and transmedia storytelling transform the notion of fidelity?
• Reception study: What opportunities do digital media present for spectators to interact with each other and the media texts, and what are the scope and shape of those fandom culture interactions (i.e. avatar creation, fan fiction, video essay criticism)?
• Textual/aesthetic analysis: How do the texts themselves--comics, films, video games, etc.--employ digital media and technology? In what ways do their aesthetics and structures communicate a converging digital landscape?
• Cultural studies: How do digital media inform the discourse of socio-cultural issues within the genre, its texts, and their reception? How might digital media convergence foster a more complex discourse of these social, cultural, or political issues central to the genre--or do they?
• Marketing aesthetics: How do the advertising strategies for individual texts take advantage of an array of new media technologies?
• Film criticism: How does contemporary criticism use digital media technology to analyze and chronicle the development of the superhero genre?
• Gender analysis: How are male and female bodies figured in the superhero genre, and how have those representations changed over time and across different forms of media?

Interested writers should submit a proposal of approximately 400-600 words. Each proposal should clearly state 1) the research question and/or theoretical goals of the essay, 2) the essay’s relationship to the anthology’s core issues, and 3) a potential bibliography. Please also include a brief CV. Accepted essays should plan to be approximately 6,000-7,000 words.

Deadline for proposals: November 1, 2012

Please send proposals to both contact e-mails:

• James Gilmore: james.n.gilmore@gmail.com
• Matthias Stork: mstork@ucla.edu

Publication timetable:

• November 1, 2012 – Deadline for Proposals
• December 15, 2012 – Notification of Acceptance Decisions
• April 15, 2013 – Chapter Drafts Due
• July 15, 2013 – Chapter Revisions Due
• August 30, 2013 – Final Revisions Due

Acceptance will be contingent upon the contributors' ability to meet these deadlines, and to deliver professional-quality work.

If you have any questions, please contact the editors.

CFP: Critical Approaches to Teaching Graphic Narratives in the Literature Classroom (edited collection; 9/15/2009)

Thanks to ComicsResearch.org pal Dennis Gouws for the tip.
Friends from graduate school + Facebook = networking deluxe!

Critical Approaches to
Teaching Graphic Narratives
in the Literature Classroom

Deadlines: proposal by September 15, 2009; essay by December 15, 2009.

This edited collection is tentatively titled Critical Approaches to Teaching Graphic Narratives in the Literature Classroom. Commonly known as book-length comics, graphic narratives cover a broad range of topics and formats. The past three decades have seen an increase of readership of graphic narratives as well as scholarly interest in this subject. This collection brings together scholarly essays that discuss the challenges, methodologies, and strategies for using graphic narratives in both undergraduate and graduate classes. This volume hopes to fill in the gap between the texts and the classroom by providing a platform for scholars to discuss the connection between graphic narratives and other genres, themes, criticism, and theories. With scholarly essays from various disciplines as well as interdisciplinary fields this collection aims to promote discussion on critical approaches and pedagogical and methodological challenges facing instructors. Emphasizing a combination of practical and theoretical strength, this collection encourages dialogues among teacher-scholars, advances the new constellation of scholarship on the teaching graphic narratives, and provides students with useful references and critical approaches to analyzing particular texts as well.

Each chapter is between 6000 and 7000 words including notes and works cited (MLA format). Please send a 500-word proposal, a 2-page CV, and a paragraph of bio note by September 15, 2009. Essays are due by December 15, 2009. Please do not submit works that are under consideration elsewhere or have been published previously.

Send inquiries and proposals to:

Lan Dong
English Department, UHB 3050
University of Illinois
Springfield, IL 62703
Email: baerchendong@yahoo.com

CFP: The Secret (And Not So Secret) Origins of Comic Books (NEMLA, April 10-13, 2008)

Received from William Duffy. For more information, email William. See also the NEMLA website.

The Secret (And Not So Secret) Origins of Comic Books
This panel seeks papers that analyze the relationship between the comic book genre and its literary, mythological, and historical influences. The issues that this panel hopes to address include, but are not limited to, the following: the motivations behind comic books' appropriation of characters and ideas from other genres, the ways in which these characters and ideas change to fit the needs of the comic form, and how being adapted to comic books affects the popular view of the source material. Please email 250-500 word abstracts (in an attachment) to wsduffy@buffalo.edu. Note: Deadline for abstracts is September 15, 2007.