"WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME -- GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!"

Stan Lee, "Spider-Man!" Amazing Fantasy No. 15 (Sept. 1962)

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

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