Comics Conference, “Transnational Comics: Crossing Gutters, Transcending Boundaries.”

The Graduate Comics Organization at the University of Florida invites proposals for the 13th UF Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, “Transnational Comics: Crossing Gutters, Transcending Boundaries.” The conference will be held in Gainesville, Florida from April 8th to10th, 2016. Confirmed keynote speakers are comics scholars John Lent (Professor Emeritus, Temple University, Editor of International Journal of Comic Art), Derek Parker Royal (Professor, University of Texas, Dallas) and international comics translator Edward Gauvin.

In the age of globalization, forms of popular culture have been increasingly marked by transcultural pollination across aesthetics, content, generic conventions and iconography. The global flow of information, media and culture increasingly requires the study of comics from a transnational perspective. A few recent publications have drawn attention to intersections of national and cultural boundaries in comics. Mark Berninger, Jochen Ecke, and Gideon Haberkorn’s co-edited anthology Comics as a Nexus of Cultures: Essay on the Interplay of Media, Disciplines and International Perspectives (2010) signaled a shift in comics studies by exploring crossovers in comics across media and nations. Daniel Stein, Shane Denson, and Christina Meyer’s edited work Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives: Comics at the Crossroads (2013) was groundbreaking in redressing the dearth in transnational investigations of graphic narratives and paying attention to border crossings as well as cultural and material exchanges in comics.

The inherently dialectic, intersectional nature of comics, as manifested in image-text interplays, gutter-crossing and collaborative production, make comics a rich site for the exploration of emerging transnational crossovers. We invite a range of papers that incorporate transnational approaches to comics studies, and which address questions of translation, reception, cross-cultural exchange, tensions between global/local and center/periphery, and the transnationalization of production processes.

Proposal Guidelines:  Please send original proposals that have not been published or presented elsewhere, along with contact information, toanujamadan@ufl.edu by January 15, 2016. All proposals will be blind reviewed, and must not exceed 300 words. Submitters will receive notification of results by February 5, 2016.

Contact Info: Anuja Madan, English Department, Turlington 4008, PO Box 117310, Gainesville, FL 32611

Contact Email:

anujamadan@ufl.edu