CFP Sexuality and LGBT Identities in Comics (11/15/2015; 2016 MSU Comics Forum)

2016 MSU Comics Forum Panel CFP: Sexuality and LGBT Identities in Comics

Discussion published by Sean Guynes on Wednesday, August 26, 2015
No Straight Lines: Sexuality and LGBT Identities in Sequence

In 2012 Fantagraphics published No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, edited by cartoonist Justin Hall. The collection testifies to the rich heritage of comics by queer creators that address aspects of LGBT lives from the mundane to the fantastic, the superheroic to the quotidian. The collection showcase the breadth of LGBT engagement with sequential art in underground comix, zines, webcomics, newspaper strips, and beyond. The same year, 2012, marked the twentieth anniversary of Marvel Comics’ revelation that Alpha Flight superhero Northstar was gay, a revelation made at the height of the AIDS crisis that took disproportionately impacted gay men. In celebration of this anniversary Northstar married boyfriend Kyle in a major comic announced on ABC’s The View. While 2012 was a milestone of sorts, over the past three years creators and comic-book companies have devoted more energy and capital to producing comics that narrate the diversity and complexity of sexual identity and LGBT lives. Part of a larger push for diversity in mainstream and independent comics, the attention to LGBT issues and representation is primarily a result of outspoken fan engagement with the comics field.

But as Justin Hall’s aptly named collection attests, queer creators and LGBT identities have a long, if sometimes closeted, history in comics of all styles and manners of production. As a growing body of comics scholarship demonstrates, this history stretches from the origins of American comic-book production and the Tijuana bibles through to the censored comics of the postwar comics crisis and on into underground comix circles; from Marvel’s explosive early years to the AIDS crisis and beyond.

The “No Straight Lines: Sexuality and LGBT Identities in Sequence” panel of the 2016 MSU Comics Forum seeks papers that contextualize the histories of sexuality in sequential art. The goal of this panel is to provide a snapshot of the complexity and diversity of LGBT identities in comics, in the industry, and among readers/fans.

Papers that recover understudied narratives, creators, or historical moments in comics' engagement with the shifting categories of queerness are preferred, though papers that bring a new perspective to well-documented topics are welcome contributions. Papers may address mainstream, independent, underground, or alternative comics/creators/audiences, as well as webcomics and comic strips.

Please send abstracts of 250 words (maximum) to the panel session organizer, Sean Guynes, at guynesse@msu.edu. Include a tentative title and your institutional (or other) affiliation.

Proposals for the panel are due November 15, 2015. This will allow us to meet the panel session proposal deadline (December 1, 2015).

A PDF of the CFP is available at https://seanguynes.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/msucf-2016-panel-cfp.pdf. Please share this with your colleagues and with any groups that you believe might draw presenters.

Best,
--
Sean A. Guynes
Doctoral Student
Department of English
Michigan State University

CFP The Marvel Cinematic Universe as Literature (Roundtable) (9/30/215; NeMLA Hartford 3/17-20/2015)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe as Literature (NeMLA 2016 Roundtable 15845)
full name / name of organization: Mary Ellen Iatropoulos, Independent Scholar / Derek S. McGrath, SUNY Stony Brook
contact email: maryiatrop@gmail.com / derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63351

With dynamic individual superhero/superhuman characters populating a world of complex, interwoven mythologies and origin stories, the films and television series of Marvel Comics Studios present an experiment with long-form transmedia storytelling that is at once both commercially successful and critically acclaimed. Given the ongoing debate in film criticism and media studies surrounding the degree to which analyzing films as literature is useful (or not), that such a commercially popular phenomenon also emphasizes artistic elements (e.g. narrative continuity, highly stylized cinematic aesthetics) renders the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) a fascinating site in which the conflict and tension play out between popular culture and cinematic aestheticism, between accessibility and esotericism, between high art and low art. How can scholars of literature use explorations of the MCU to understand or glean fresh insight into the ways in which the MCU's approaches to modern cinematic storytelling function as literature?

This roundtable session welcomes submissions undertaking literary analysis of the films, TV shows, and paratextual media products that comprise the MCU. Approaches may include analysis of one or more films; storytelling across genre and medium; adaptations of the original Marvel Comics to film and television; and applications of various schools of literary and media theory to MCU properties.

Please do not directly send abstracts by email. Abstract submissions should be processed by the NeMLA database and user-based system. To this end, presenters should upload their abstracts athttps://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/cfp by choosing session # 15845, and following the instructions to create a user account. Please contact NeMLA Support Staff support@nemla.org regarding any questions you have about using the new system.

About NeMLA 2016:

Northeast Modern Language Association
47th Annual Convention
Hartford, Connecticut
March 17-20, 2016
Hosted by the University of Connecticut

In spring 2016, the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) will meet in Hartford, Connecticut, for its 47th Annual Convention. Every year, this event affords NeMLA’s principal opportunity to carry on a tradition of lively research and pedagogical exchange in language and literature. The convention will include a full array of sessions, workshops, literary readings, film screenings, and guest speakers.

Hartford features some of the most significant historic and cultural sites in New England: the adjacent and interconnected Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe Houses; the artistic and cultural collections at the Wadsworth Atheneum; classic and contemporary performances at the Hartford Stage, Theater Works, and the Bushnell Center for Performing Arts; archives and research opportunities at the Connecticut Historical Society and Connecticut State Library and State Archives; unique and offbeat museums for kids and families such as the Connecticut Science Center and the CRRA Trash Museum; and much more. Both Adriaen’s Landing (the newly completed area around the convention center) and the historic downtown feature a variety of restaurants, shops, and parks.

This convention will feature approximately 400 sessions, dynamic speakers and cultural events. Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however, panelists can only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.


By web submission at 08/09/2015 - 00:23

CFP The Monster In The House: Domestic Ideology in Superhero Narratives (9/30/2015; NeMLA Hartford 3/17-20/2016)

This sounds like a really great idea for a session:

The Monster In The House: Domestic Ideology in Superhero Narratives (NeMLA 2016 Panel 15842)
full name / name of organization: Mary Ellen Iatropoulos, Independent Scholar / Derek S. McGrath, SUNY Stony Brook
contact email: maryiatrop@gmail.com / derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63350

Deadline for abstract submissions: September 30th 2015

In worlds full of superhuman heroes, mythological imaginary creatures and battle narratives of epic scope, what is the role of the domestic? In the recently released film _Avengers: Age of Ultron_, the titular superheroes hide away not in a high-tech secured stronghold but in a farmhouse belonging to the archer Hawkeye, his wife, and their young children. Barton’s presence as the film’s only parent with a seemingly stable domestic lifestyle provides a temporary shelter for our heroes, illustrating how the domestic can function as a stable ground for the superhero narrative to withstand its otherwise fantastic, explosive elements.

This panel session seeks proposals investigating the ways in which domestic spaces function within superhero narratives as sites of union and/or conflict between the human, the subhuman, and the superhuman. How do teenage vigilantes like those in _Runaways_ construct unconventional homes? How do familial/community obligations inspire the Hell’s Kitchen resident Daredevil to defend his hometown? How have heterogeneous, even internally combative, groups like the X-Men and the Justice League been imagined as odd couple household scenarios? How have extraterrestrials such as Superman used domestic ideology to make sense of their self-appointed mission to protect their adopted homes, and how may domestic ideology help us make sense of reading these characters’ stories as allegories of immigrants’ experiences?

This session seeks proposals that explore how domestic ideology informs and functions within superhero stories, as well as how humanity and the human are depicted in the context of domestic spaces within superhero narratives.

Please do not directly send abstracts by email. Abstract submissions should be processed by the NeMLA database and user-based system. To this end, presenters should upload their abstracts at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/cfp by choosing session #15842 and following the instructions to create a user account. Please contact NeMLA Support Staff (support@nemla.org) regarding any questions you have about using the new system.

About NeMLA 2016:

Northeast Modern Language Association
47th Annual Convention
Hartford, Connecticut
March 17-20, 2016
Hosted by the University of Connecticut

In spring 2016, the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) will meet in Hartford, Connecticut, for its 47th Annual Convention. Every year, this event affords NeMLA’s principal opportunity to carry on a tradition of lively research and pedagogical exchange in language and literature. The convention will include a full array of sessions, workshops, literary readings, film screenings, and guest speakers.

Hartford features some of the most significant historic and cultural sites in New England: the adjacent and interconnected Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe Houses; the artistic and cultural collections at the Wadsworth Atheneum; classic and contemporary performances at the Hartford Stage, Theater Works, and the Bushnell Center for Performing Arts; archives and research opportunities at the Connecticut Historical Society and Connecticut State Library and State Archives; unique and offbeat museums for kids and families such as the Connecticut Science Center and the CRRA Trash Museum; and much more. Both Adriaen’s Landing (the newly completed area around the convention center) and the historic downtown feature a variety of restaurants, shops, and parks.

This convention will feature approximately 400 sessions, dynamic speakers and cultural events. Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however, panelists can only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.


By web submission at 08/09/2015 - 00:11

CFP Visualizing Diversity in Children's Literature (9/15/2015; ChLA Ohio 6/9-11/2016)

Panel: Visualizing Diversity in Children's Literature
full name / name of organization:
Diversity Committee, Children's Literature Association
contact email:
lara.saguisag@csi.cuny.edu; mary.couzelis@morgan.edu
Call for Papers
Visualizing Diversity in Children’s Literature
Panel Sponsored by Children’s Literature Association Diversity Committee
2016 Children’s Literature Association Conference

The ChLA Diversity Committee seeks paper proposals for a panel on diversity and visual representation in children’s literature. Scholarship has increasingly become invested in examining and interrogating the ways the institution of children’s literature defines and practices diversity. This panel will specifically investigate how visual elements in children’s literature have been utilized in such definitions and practices. Papers may examine how visual-verbal narratives such as picturebooks, comics, graphic novels, photographic books, cartoons, and animated films define, approach, promote, conceal and/or ignore diversity; how tensions between visual and verbal modes create possibilities and problems in representing minority groups; how children's literature has attempted to make the marginalized and “invisible” visible; and how texts appropriate, complicate and/or repudiate visual caricatures of minority groups.

The Children’s Literature Association Conference will be held at Columbus, OH from June 9 to June 11, 2016.

For queries, please contact Mary Henderson Couzelis (mary.couzelis@morgan.edu) or Lara Saguisag (lara.saguisag@csi.cuny.edu). Email a 500-word abstract and a 2-page CV to Mary Henderson Couzelis (mary.couzelis@morgan.edu) by September 15, 2015.

By web submission at 07/20/2015 - 15:55

CFP Transitions 6 Comic Symposium London (7/31/2015;London 10/31/2015)

[UPDATE] Transitions 6 Comic Symposium London
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63061
full name / name of organization: Birkbeck, University of London
contact email: transitions.symposium@gmail.com

TRANSITIONS 6 – New Directions in Comics Studies 2015
Symposium – 31st October 2015, Birkbeck, University of London
Keynote: Dr. Mel Gibson (Northumbria University)
Respondent: Professor Roger Sabin (Central Saint Martins)
CALL FOR PAPERS
Deadline: 31st July 2015

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the forthcoming 6th Transitions symposium, promoting new research and multi-disciplinary academic study of comics/ comix/ manga/ bande dessinée and other forms of sequential art. We welcome abstracts for twenty minute papers as well as proposals for panels.
Possible topics include but are not limited to:

text-oriented approaches – studies of key creators – historical and contemporary studies of production and circulation of comics – readerships and fan cultures – critical reception – formats, platforms and contexts – the (im)materiality of comics – archival concerns – formalist/narratological approaches – comics and aesthetics – adaptation, convergence and remediation – international iterations and transnational comics – children’s comics – political comics – comics and cultural theory – ideological/discursive critiques – web comics – graphic medicine – non-fiction comics – comics as historiography – comics practice and theory– cultural histories/geographies

Abstracts for twenty minute papers should be no more than 250 – 300 words. Proposals for papers and panels should be sent as Word documents, with a short biography appended, and submitted by the 31st July 2015 to Hallvard, John, Nina, and Tony at transitions.symposium@gmail.com.

By web submission at 07/20/2015 - 13:00

CFP Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives (8/21/15)

Sounds like a worthwhile project:

CFP: Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/73165/cfp-sacred-texts-and-comics-religion-faith-and-graphic-narratives
Discussion published by Assaf Gamzou on Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Ken Koltun-Fromm, Haverford College (kkoltunf@haverford.edu)
Assaf Gamzou, Israeli Cartoon Museum (assaf@cartoon.org.il)

Call for Papers
Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives

The last decade has produced critical and expressive studies in sacred canonical texts and comics. Witness, for example, the artistic works from R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis (2009) and JT Waldman’s Megillat Esther (2005), as well as scholarly publications from Karline McLain’s India's Immortal Comic Books (2009), A. David Lewis’s edited volume Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (2010), and Samantha Baskind’s and Ranen Omer-Sherman’s editorial work for The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches (2010).


Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives is a proposed volume for the “Critical Approaches to Comics Artists” series at the University Press of Mississippi that builds upon, but also beyond, Western or “major” religious traditions to develop a broader landscape of religious graphic mediums. We encourage submissions that engage Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Native American, African Diaspora traditions, or other religious communities from a variety of disciplinary or cross-disciplinary perspectives. Such critical approaches may include studies in religion, literature, theology, art history, culture, anthropology, political science, or other disciplines that work with the multi-dimensional features of graphic narratives.


Topics may include, but are not limited to:
Depictions of the sacred in comics.
The place of historical exegesis and critical, religious interpretation in graphic narratives.
Comics as a form and method of interpretation.
The ways in which the graphic, formal features engage notions of the sacred.
The modes by which graphic narratives represent the sacred or conceptions of religion.
The ways in which religious identity and belief are represented and explored in graphic mediums.
The multiple ways that visual culture informs religious practice.


Please send a 500-1000 word abstract, CV, and contact information to Ken Koltun-Fromm (kkoltunf@haverford.edu) and Assaf Gamzou (assaf@cartoon.org.il) by August 21, 2015. Haverford College will host a symposium on “Sacred Texts and Comics” on May 5th and 6th, 2016 that will include workshops for contributors to this proposed volume. Please indicate your interest in and availability to participate in the symposium (all expenses will be paid, including a small stipend).

CFP Race and Comics: The Politics of Representation in Sequential Art (9/30/15; NeMLA 2016)

CFP: Race and Comics: The Politics of Representation in Sequential Art | NeMLA 2016 (Abstract Submission Deadline: September 30, 2015)
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/75816/cfp-race-and-comics-politics-representation-sequential-art-nemla

Discussion published by Rafael Ponce-Cordero on Sunday, July 19, 2015

Your network editor has reposted this from H-Announce. The byline reflects the original authorship.

Type: Call for Papers
Date: September 30, 2015
Location: Connecticut, United States
Subject Fields: Ethnic History / Studies, Political Science

This panel welcomes papers that examine the treatment of race and racial relations in comic books, whether in superhero narratives, graphic memoirs, web comics, or other forms of sequential art both inside and outside the United States. How are comics used to document and represent racialized identities? How have the medium and its surrounding fan communities adapted earlier content to speak to current topics?

Submit abstracts (300 words maximum) by September 30, 2015 to Session ID#15963 at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/15963

Comics have long been filled with depictions and discussions, overt or implied, of race and ethnicity. Racist portrayals persist, from Belgium’s Tintin to Mexico’s Memín, and in the U.S. not only in the so-called “darky” iconography of yore but in contemporary racist representations of the current President, even as an issue of Spider-Man guest-starring Barack Obama becomes one of the top-selling comic books. Comics have also provided spaces to explore social issues, as in Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams’s breakthrough 1970s Green Lantern/Green Arrow series that examined structural racism. Diversity as well remains an important consideration in how comics provide not only a realistic view of race in the world but also a medium for authors to represent their own experiences related to racial identity. There is an ongoing (and controversial) trend of increasing diversity in superhero narratives by making some previously white characters non-white. Superhero teams such as the X-Men, throughout their history at times racially monotone or racially diverse, have nevertheless been read as allegories for civil rights battles by comparing bodies marked as different to racialized bodies. Fans produce their own content to identify racial diversity or its lack, whether at conventions such as Cosplaying While Black, or in academic discussions and museum gallery installations such as John Jenning’s Black Kirby, which “remixes” Jack Kirby’s superheroes to reflect topics relevant in African American studies and lives. And memoirs such as American Born Chinese, Persepolis, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian explicitly address those subjects and how they consider racialized identities. With superheroes including Araña, Aztek, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Hiro Hamada, Karate Kid, Dr. Light, Miles Morales, Kyle Rayner, Red Wolf, Shadow Hero, Ohiyesa Smith, John Stewart, Storm, Vibe, and War Machine, it is clear that racial relations are an important concern for artists and readers of this medium.

In spring 2016, the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) will meet in Hartford, Connecticut, for its 47th Annual Convention. Every year, this event affords NeMLA’s principal opportunity to carry on a tradition of lively research and pedagogical exchange in language and literature. Please join us for this convention, which will feature approximately 400 sessions, dynamic speakers, and cultural events. Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however, panelists can only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable. Full information regarding the 2016 Call for Papers may be found on NeMLA's website: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/cfp

Contact Email: rponcecordero@keene.edu
URL: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/15963

CFP Marvel Cinematic Universe - Phase One (Update) (7/31/15)

CFP - Edited Collection on Marvel Cinematic Universe - Phase One
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/75807/cfp-edited-collection-marvel-cinematic-universe-phase-one
Discussion published by Kris Barton on Sunday, July 19, 2015

Your network editor has reposted this from H-Announce. The byline reflects the original authorship.

Type: Call for Papers
Date: July 31, 2015
Location: United States
Subject Fields: Film and Film History, Cultural History / Studies

As one of the biggest and most successful film franchises of all time, Marvel’s approach to developing an interconnected film universe has seemingly revolutionized the way superhero films are being made. Creating a shared universe with elements that crossover and interconnect individual films (culminating in perhaps the ultimate “team-up” film, The Avengers), this approach to filmmaking changed the way characters and storylines are developed. Marvel’s foresight has resulted in a long-term plan for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which at this point consists of three distinct phases.

With that said, there has been relatively little exploration of how this approach to filmmaking affects both the stories being told and the way they are being consumed by audiences. This collection seeks to investigate these issues, but in a way that mirrors the approach that Marvel has laid out for its properties. To that end, this edited collection is the first in a proposed trilogy of books, each volume of which will explore a distinct phase of the MCU and dissect how the characters evolve, how storylines grow, and how the success of the franchise continually expands the scope of the stories being told. Specifically, this proposed collection will look at Phase One of the MCU, which is comprised of the following films:

Iron Man (2008)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Thor (2011)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
The Avengers (2012)

While a number of chapters have already been completed for this collection, we are still looking specifically for the following:

1. Hawkeye/Black Widow – How do the non-super powered Avengers fit into the MCU? Are their roles different given they lack any paranormal enhancements?
2. Villains – What role/function do the villains of Phase One play in the MCU and/or how are the depicted?
3. Franchise building – How has the MCU shaped other comic book properties’ approach to film narrative (DC, X-Men) or other properties in general?
4. Linkages – A general look at how different elements of the MCU (Tesseract, Nick Fury, Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D.) are used to bridge films and create a cohesive cinematic universe.
5. A limited number of other topics will be considered. Please e-mail with questions regarding topics not listed above.

Please note: the chapters contained in the collection will focus exclusively on events in Phase One of the MCU, so discussion of development or events from subsequent films should be avoided.

Chapters should be 5,000-7,000 words (MLA format, no footnotes or endnotes please) that fit into one of the above sections. Article abstracts (500+ words) and a brief CV should be submitted by July 31, 2015 to Dr. Kristin Barton at kmbarton@daltonstate.edu. Submissions with detailed outlines or in draft form will be given stronger consideration. Completed essays must be submitted by September 30, 2015. Brief queries are welcome should there be questions about appropriate submission topics. Selected authors will be notified by August 2015, and please note that invitation to submit a full essay does not guarantee inclusion in the volume. A contract for this book through a university press is pending a review of proposed chapters.

Contact Info:
Kristin M. Barton
Chair and Associate Professor
Dalton State College
Contact Email: kmbarton@daltonstate.edu

CFP Inaugural Issue of The Rising Dragon (open-topic) (12/1/2015)

Of potential interest:

Inaugural CFP: The Rising Dragon, a journal of Pacific Rim culture and media studies
Monday, June 8, 2015
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/71886/inaugural-cfp-rising-dragon-journal-pacific-rim-culture-and-media

The Rising Dragon

Call for Papers

We are pleased to announce the first CFP for a new publication, The Rising Dragon, a journal of Pacific Rim culture and media studies. We also accept video submissions. The theme for our first edition is “Pacific Rim as Frontier and Heartland.” During his presidential nomination acceptance speech in 1960, President John F. Kennedy first posited the idea of the Pacific Rim as a definite community that was both frontier and heartland, combining the two central ideas of the American mythos. For him, it was a contiguous, ever more integrated community of interest, experience, and humanness. It revolves as a single unit in that sense, transcending the merely Trans-Pacific by being Circum-Pacific, including all the cultures on the edges and within it. This is what informs our idea of the Pacific Rim and thus provides the impetus for our first theme, “Pacific Rim as Frontier and Heartland.”

Topics for consideration may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Anthropology and Sociology
Art and Music, Traditional to Today
Cultural Fusion, Adaptation, and Experimentation
Fandom Groups and Popular Culture
History
Human Interaction with the Natural World
Immigration, Emigration, Acculturation, and Returning Home
Imperialism, Colonialism, Independence, and Indigeneity
Interactive and New Media
Literature (Including Graphic Literature) and Language
Politics, Economics, and International Relations
Race Relations
Religious Practices, Festivals, and Rites
Sexual and Gender Normativities
Steampunk
Television, Cinema, and Video Games
Theatre and Performance
Youth Culture and Expression
All fields are to be broadly construed and we will consider submissions outside these areas on their individual merits
We also accept book, film, and game review proposals
Please contact us if you have a proposal for a future themed edition

The Rising Dragon is principally an English-language journal and all initial submissions, including abstracts, are to be in that language. Authors may use American or British English as the author prefers, provided they are consistent. Author-provided translations of all materials in other Pacific Rim languages (e.g. Cebuano, Chinese, French, Hawai’ian, Japanese, Javanese, Korean, Laotian, Malay, Maori, Pama-Nyungan, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese) will be published alongside the official English versions. Submissions may also be multimedia, including standard print formats and accompanying video or audio recordings. Please see our CFV for details on how to submit a recording.

Questions, inquiries, and abstracts of 250-500 words and CV/résumé should be submitted to RisingDragonJournal@gmail.com in Word format by 1 December 2015 for inclusion in the first edition, projected for a 15 March 2016 publication date. We also accept applications to be outside readers for blind peer review purposes. Academics at all stages of their careers, industry professionals, government and religious officials, and other interested parties are all eligible to submit abstracts to The Rising Dragon for consideration. Papers submitted to The Rising Dragon must not have been published or posted elsewhere before submission to the journal. Please see our Style Sheet before submitting an abstract or completed manuscript.

Our journal is an open access publication, as are our video presentations, and will never charge fees to authors or readers. The Rising Dragon is a publication of the International College of Liberal Arts at Yamanashi Gakuin University.



Editorial Board:

Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Darren Jon Ashmore, Professor of Anthropology and Head of Japan Studies, Yamanashi Gakuin University, Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan

Assistant Editor: J. Holder Bennett, Associate Professor of History, Collin College, McKinney, Texas, USA

Associate Editors:

Dr. Eunju Bährisch, Postdoctoral Researcher and Project Coordinator, Institute of Korean Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Dr. Elizabeth Birmingham, Associate Dean of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and Professor of English, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota, USA

Dr. Darryl E. Brock, Adjunct Assistant Professor of History, University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

Dr. Rick Hudson, Research Fellow, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, England, UK

Dr. Frank Jacob, Assistant Professor of World History, Queensborough Community College, City University of New York, Bayside, New York, USA

Dr. Bruno Starrs, Senior Lecturer in Cinematology, Institut Teknologi Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, Negara Brunei Darussalam

Dr. Christopher B. Patterson, Assistant Professor of English, New York Institute of Technology, Nanjing, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

Daniel Fandino, Member, H-Net Executive Council, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

Peter Schuelke, Visiting Fellow, Polinsky Language Science Lab, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Video Curator: William R. Clark, Jr.

ISSN: 2379-2930

CFP Mad Magazine collection (9/15/2015)

CFP: Book on Mad Magazine
Monday, June 8, 2015
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/71888/cfp-book-mad-magazine

Call for papers for a book on Mad magazine. We are looking for scholarly examinations of the magazine, its humor, its artists, its cultural and political impact, and its influence. The book is under consideration by a major university press, and will expand what was covered in a recent special issue of Studies in American Humor. Here is the link to the contents of that issue: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerhumor.issue-30

Possible topics include the following:  feminist approaches; racial issues; humor types/genres/media; movie and TV parodies; recurring features, such as “Spy vs. Spy”; examinations of specific artists/writers; precursors; legacy/influence; and others.

Please send queries or proposals by September 15, 2015 to Judith Yaross Lee, the editor of Studies in American Humor:  leej@ohio.edu

Judith Yaross Lee
Ohio University
Email: leej@ohio.edu

CFP Comics of Julie Doucet and Gabrielle Bell (collection) (8/15/2015)

Wow! It has been a very long time since my last post. I hope to be more responsive this summer.

CFP: The comics of Julie Doucet and Gabrielle Bell (an edited collection) Aug. 15-- proposals due
Sunday, June 14, 2015
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/72436/cfp-comics-julie-doucet-and-gabrielle-bell-edited-collection-aug-15

Call for Papers

The comics of Julie Doucet and Gabrielle Bell (an edited collection)

This proposed volume for the University Press of Mississippi's book series, Critical Approaches to Comics Artists, will examine the works of two influential cartoonists: Julie Doucet and Gabrielle Bell. These artists have helped shape the world of contemporary comics, particularly through their experiments in autobiography, travelogue, fantasy, and diary.

We are interested in assembling a tightly woven collection of compelling essays from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives in order to suggest starting off points for sustained future critical analysis. Each essay may examine the works of one or the other cartoonist, or it may put historical and aesthetic discussions of their works in conversation with one another. Some of the critical approaches we hope to encounter include: comics and visual studies, art history, print and material culture studies, women's and gender studies, and auto/biography studies.

General topics potential contributors may choose to address in discussing the works of one, the other, or both cartoonists include:

• diaries, travelogues, and dream journals
• representations of gender and sexuality
• adaptations (film, etc.) and/or translations
• auto/biography and/or gender and genre
• urban landscapes and interiors
• comics genealogies and networks
• technology and comics
• place and origin: Quebec/England/San Francisco/New York
• graphic medicine (epilepsy, depression)
• self-publishing, zines, and mini-comics
• career trajectories
• anthologies/anthologizing; comics publishers/publishing (L'Association, Drawn & Quarterly, website, self, etc.)
• art books and/or non-narrative works
• non-comics works and methods (collage, poetry, animation, silkscreening, etc.)

In the form of a Word file or PDF, please send a 500-1000 word abstract, CV, and contact information to Tahneer Oksman and Seamus O'Malley at bellanddoucet@gmail.com by August 15.

CFP Comics Arts Conference at Comic-Con International (3/1/15; San Diego 7/9-12/15)

An exciting opportunity. My thanks to the NEPCA blog for the information.

CFP: Comics Arts Conference at Comic-Con International

100 to 200 word abstracts for papers, presentations, panels, and poster sessions taking a critical or historical perspective on comics (juxtaposed images in sequence) are being accepted for a meeting of scholars and professionals at the San Diego Comic-Con International, 7/9-7/12, 2015.  We seek proposals from a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives and welcome the participation of academic and independent scholars.  We also encourage the involvement of professionals from all areas of the comics industry, including creators, editors, publishers, retailers, distributors, and journalists. The CAC is designed to bring together comics scholars, professionals, critics, and historians to engage in discussion of the comics.  Proposals due 3/1 to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BZD3DRD or comicsartsconference@gmail.com.

IJoCA for Fall/Winter 2014 First Notice

The latest issue of the International Journal of Comic Art was received this week. Volume 16, number 2 (for Fall/Winter 2014) includes 686 pages of scholarship and art. Full contents will be posted when they are made available. Subscription information can be found at http://ijoca.com/new/sub4_subscript.html. Issues are $45 per volume.