#mla 2014

A few of us are organizing exciting talks this March in Boston for the Northeast Modern Language Association.  Before that conference begins, however, I wanted to advertise the calls for papers that the national Modern Language Association has released for its 2014 Chicago meeting.  Based on the comics/graphic narrative panels I was able to attend at MLA Boston, I look forward to these panels! 

Deadlines are coming up, so please visit the Comics and Graphic Narratives Division at graphicnarratives.org for more information.

CFP: Collaboration in Comics (MLA 2014)

Though comics is a dialogic form, current academic work on comics has remarkably little to say about the possibility of genuinely dialogical creation, that is, collaboration. The bulk of recent scholarly and curatorial work on comics favors the concept of cartooning as a singular personal handwriting, that is, an autographic trace, ignoring the historical importance and artistic potential of multi-authored comics. The proposed panel seeks to illuminate this blind spot in comics study by inviting critical perspectives on collaboration. We seek proposals on all topics relevant to this issue, including but not necessarily limited to:

The legal, ethical, economic, and artistic implications of creative teaming

Instances of tense, difficult, or complicated collaboration

Studio projects, e.g., Eisner et al., The Spirit; Hergé et al., Tintin

Notable collaborative teams in comics, e.g., Goscinny and Uderzo, Jodorowsky and Moebius, Koike and Kojima, Kurtzman et al., Moore et al., Pekar et al., Gaiman and McKean, Simon and Kirby, Stanley and Tripp, many more

Collaborations that go beyond the usual division of scenarist and artist, e.g., Dupuy-Berberian, Karasik and Mazzucchelli (City of Glass), Trondheim/Sfar et al.

Artists’ collectives, e.g., Actus Tragicus, CLAMP, Fast Fiction, Stripcore, Wimmen’s Comix

Collaborative autobiography in comics, e.g., Pekar et al., American Splendor;Brabner, Pekar, and Stack, Our Cancer Year; Kominsky-Crumb and Crumb; Sowa and Savoia, Marzi; Wojnarowicz and Romberger, Seven Miles a Second

Specific collaborative processes and their artistic ramifications, e.g., constraint-based experiments, exquisite corpse games, and jams; scripting by thumbnail v. full script; the Marvel method

Metacritical consideration of how criticism and theory value, or devalue, collaborative work

Creators who shift roles (scenarist, artist, etc.) between projects, e.g., David B., Frank Miller, Sfar, Shanower, Trondheim

Editors as collaborators, e.g., Goscinny, Menu, Spiegelman/Mouly, many examples in manga

Collaborations with family or partners, e.g., the Crumb family, Los Bros Hernandez, Mary Talbot and Bryan Talbot in Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes

Send 200 to 300-word abstracts in .doc or .pdf to Charles Hatfield (charles [dot] hatfield [at] gmail [dot] com) by 8 March 2013. Submitters will receive notification of results by April 1.

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CFP: Transnational Comics (MLA 2014)

Spurred by the development of the Internet and wordless communication, transnationalism has come to mean a new way of thinking about the relationships and interconnectivity among cultures, languages, arts, and peoples on the international stage. Comics and graphic narratives have long been the visual and textual testament to this global interaction. From the influence of 19th and early 20th century European comic art on American comics (and vice versa), the cultural links between Japanese manga and comics worldwide, and the rise of graphic novels in non-western countries to current issues of production, translation, and cultural reception, comics and graphic narratives lend themselves to a transnational lens. Indeed, in these complex and vulnerable times, as globalization refigures what we mean by “worldwide” and cultural forms cross-pollinate across national boundary lines, the prospect of a truly transnational comics studies seems more important than ever.

This panel invites papers that explore the cultural exchange that comics and graphic narratives have had and continue to offer. A few questions to consider:

How do American comics differ from manga? From bande dessinée?

How have specific comic artists influenced each other in transnational and intercultural contexts? Papers might consider, for example, how a distinctive style (such as Hergé’s ligne claire) has been adopted by artists in other countries, or how comics anthologies (such as RAW or Stripburger) and festivals (such as the FIBD in Angoulême) facilitate transnational connections.

How have superhero characters been adapted around the world? What are the implications of these transnational adaptations?

What are the cultural implications when comics are translated into other languages and for other audiences, for example into English for American markets? What aspects of the original context are preserved or lost in this translation?

How might emerging theories of transnationalism, or analyses of globalization, shed light on comics and comics culture?