Upcoming comics studies workshop
The London-based Transitions day-long workshop, help in conjunction with the Comica Festival in November 2011 has been announced. I went last year and can vouch that it was very interesting and a good place to get in touch with the UK comics studies community.
Also upcoming (much sooner) is the Comics and Conflicts conference:
http://www.comicafestival.com/index.php/site/news/comics_conflicts_conference_call_for_papers/
The Comics & Conflicts Conference will be held on 19-20 August, 2011 at the Imperial War Museum in London, and is aimed at comics scholars, practitioners, and enthusiasts. Invited conference speakers and guests will include: Pat Mills (Charley’s War); Martin Barker and Roger Sabin on Doonesbury; Garth Ennis (Troubled Souls, War Story); Jacques Tardi (It Was The War Of The Trenches) and Jean-Pierre Verney (Putain de Guerre), the latter two subject to confirmation.
Papers for the conference are welcomed that explore the ways in which comics around the world represent and articulate the experience and impact of war and conflict. For example, topics may include:
- Depictions of conflict in comics created for children.
- Representations of trauma in comic books, graphic novels, manga & other forms of international comics.
- Visual representations of conflict in such places as Afghanistan, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, The Middle East, Northern Ireland, and Vietnam.
- Journalism, biography, and memoir in comics on conflict.
- Focus on key practitioners such as Guibert, Kubert, Mills, Sacco, Satrapi, Spiegelman, Tardi & Trudeau.
- Comics as a space to depict/critique national ideology.
- Comics as tools of propaganda, both of the state and of protest organisations.
