CFP: Comics Conference on Sex, Gender, and Sexuality (University of Florida, 3/21-22/2008)

Just announced, and highly recommended:

The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce the 2008 UF Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels: "ImageSexT: Intersections of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality," which will be held in Gainesville, Florida, on March 21-22, 2008.

The sixth annual conference on comics will focus on issues of representation in the most literal sense: that of the image on the page (screen, monitor, etc.). We are interested in papers that move beyond facile reiterations of identity politics to explore the complexities and complexes of bodies and desires for artists, writers, and readers of comics. Here we are using "comics" in its broadest sense, to include animation, manga, anime, graphic novels, webcomics, political cartoons, and even some "fine art." Theoretically grounded work is preferred, but we also have an interest in archival, historical, and creative papers. The goal of this conference is to encourage interdisciplinary discussion incorporating diverse approaches to the comics representation of sex, gender, and sexuality.

Confirmed guests for this year include Phoebe Gloeckner (Diary of a Young Girl) and Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman); invited guests include Jaime Hernandez (Love and Rockets).

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Autobiographical and authorial issues of sex and gender in comics, including issues of veiled autobiography, writing across gender lines, collaboration, and adaptation (Stuck Rubber Baby, Fun Home, The Authority, Fritz the Cat)
• Archival/historical work on depictions of the body, intercourse and identity including persistence and/or revision of stereotypes (Tijuana Bibles, Charles Atlas ads, homosexuality in early animation, Air Pirates Funnies)
• Who's drawing my body? Self- and Other-representations and culture wars (Goth comics, Superhero[ine] physiques, Dirty Plotte)
• Fans turn Pro (and vice versa): sex and gender issues at the boundary between and in the transition from fandom to professional comics (letters pages, undergrounds, fanzines, weblogs, fanfic, slash and doujinshi origins)
• Indeterminacy, including queer readings, secret identities, and the act of passing in and through comics (How Loathsome, Death Note, Black Hole, The Book of Lost Souls)
• "How ethics spoiled my pleasure": including how female fans read and enter comics, our implication in – and pleasure from – objectification, and the comic as part of a cultural circuit of capital and power (Girl-Wonder.org, Women in Refrigerators, Sequential Tart)
• The comic book fetish, including the materiality of the comic, the pleasure of reading, and "slabbing"
• The perversity of children's narratives (Strawberry Panic, Hikaru no Go, Lost Girls, Diary of a Young Girl)
• Politics and sex, including political allegory in comics, metaphors of otherness, and sex and censorship (V for Vendetta, Y the Last Man, Alias, Superfly)
• Representation and its necessary problems, from signifying male- or femaleness to figuring sex and desire, through drawings of bodies and acts, or depicting intimacy and pleasure (Diary of A Dominatrix, Clumsy, Playboy comics, [non-] explicit animation)
• International issues, including trade and censorship, translations, and taboos (scanlations, fansubbing, "official" translations, cross-cultural marketing and audiences)

Abstract submissions should be approximately 250-500 words in length. Presentations will be 15 minutes with 5 minutes of question and answer. The deadline for abstract submissions is December 1, 2007.

Image: UG Graphic Novel Conferences header, by Dylan Horrocks.

2007 UF Conference on Comics - "World Building: Seriality and History"

Yesterday I received the call for papers for The University of Florida's 2007 Conference on Comics, so I thought I'd post it here. This will be the fifth comics conference hosted at UF; you can find information on previous years here. I had the pleasure of attending 2003's "Underground(s)" conference, so I know that attendees will learn quite a lot from both the scholars and the cartoonist-guests.

Here's the Call for Papers:

The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Department of English are pleased to announce the 2007 UF Conference on Comics: "World Building: Seriality and History," which will be held in Gainesville, Florida, on March 3-4, 2007, in conjunction with the annual Game and Digital Media Studies Conference, which will be March 1-2.

This fifth annual conference on comics will focus on the construction of narrative worlds in comics, with particular emphasis on the various temporalities of the medium. We are especially interested in the ways temporality informs the status of comics as a serial medium (both in terms of serial publication as well as the serialization of time within the page) and the ways temporality relates to the representation of history and memory within the narrative. This could be in terms of personal and social history, as in Maus and Persepolis, or in terms of internal narrative histories like superhero retcons and crossovers.

Our keynote speakers for this year include Jeff Smith (Bone), Bryan Talbot (The Tale of One Bad Rat, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright), Dylan Horrocks (Hicksville), and Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Action Comics).

We also encourage submissions that cross over with the Game and Digital Media Studies conference, on the topic of "World Building: Space and Community," particularly those that consider the role of time and space across multiple media. We will also consider two-part submissions on related topics to be presented across the two conferences, and other proposals that push the formal constraints of a conference presentation.

Abstract submissions should be approximately 250-500 words in length. Presentations will be 15 minutes with 5 minutes of question and answer.

The deadline for abstract submissions is January 1st, 2007. Abstracts should be submitted via our online conference system, which is on the conference website at http://www.english.ufl.edu/worlds . Please direct all questions to sandifer@english.ufl.edu.

For a list of possible topics, please see the on-line call for papers. Actually, I've been kicking around some thoughts on this very topic lately; hmmmm. Maybe I'll see you there!

Image credit: World Building website.