Over the course of the past two years, there has been a marked increase of academic interest in comic books and graphic novels, from a cultural theory perspective as well as from the fields of media studies and literature. However, there have been surprisingly few book-length studies on this topic published from any of these disciplinary perspectives. Hence, while Scott McCloud’s groundbreaking book Understanding Comics raised public and academic interest in this under- theorized and challenging medium, and helped to theorize the medium-specific qualities of sequential pictorial narratives, his book suspends the question of how specific disciplinary perspectives might be engaged.
This new interdisciplinary collection will bring together the work of scholars writing about comic books and graphic novels. Our collection of essays from a wide selection of academic perspectives will not only demonstrate the far-reaching influence of this exciting medium across disciplines, but it will also make this still-controversial subject accessible to a wider scholarly audience of teachers and students alike. Abstracts (1000 words) are welcome for but not limited to the following proposed chapters:
1: Origin stories: The history and development of the genre
2: What we talk about when we talk about comics: Theory and terminology
3: ‘Out of the gutter’: Graphic novel adaptations
4: Men in tights?: Superheroes in the graphic novel
5: Drawing history: Non-fiction in graphic novels
Please submit abstracts and/or full-length papers (±5000 words) no later than 15 Febuary 2008 to:
Dan Hassler-Forest
University of Amsterdam
Dep. Media Studies
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam
The Netherlands
d.a.hassler-forest_at_uva.nl
University of Amsterdam
Dep. English Literature
Spuistraat 210
1012 VT Amsterdam
The Netherlands
j.goggin_at_uva.nl
I found this CFP by the way at http://cfp.english.upenn.edu/archive/20th/3305.html and if you hit that link and go back to their main page they have all kinds of English-related CFPs, which I thought you might dig, Chad.
