News

Nomination Deadline: March 25, 2022

The Comics Studies Society (CSS) recognizes outstanding contributions to the study of comic art with five annual prizes: the CSS Article Prize, the Hillary Chute Award for Best Graduate Student Paper, the Gilbert Seldes Prize for Public Scholarship, the Charles Hatfield Book Prize, and the CSS Prize for Edited Book Collections.

The CSS defines comic art as the category of artistic production that incorporates all forms of cartooning, sequential art, and graphic narrative. This includes, but is not limited to, the following forms: comic strips, comic books, papers, and magazines; albums, graphic novels, and other graphic books; webcomics and other electronic formats; single-panel cartoons, including editorial and gag cartoons; caricature; animation; and other related forms and traditions.

The CSS is currently soliciting nominations for all five prizes, which will be awarded at the 5th Annual Conference of the Comics Studies Society (July 28^th-30^th, 2022). Winners will receive a $300 cash award and a plaque. Please see the CSS Website for conference details.

• Nominations for the CSS prizes may be historical, biographical, critical, analytical, pedagogical, and/or bibliographical in focus.
• Nominations should draw on original research, acknowledge and advance existing scholarship where relevant, and include appropriate documentation and citation.
• Reprints of or excerpts from previously published works are not eligible for prizes.
• Each piece of scholarship may only be nominated once across all categories of the CSS Prizes, and individuals nominated for a CSS Prize may only have one piece of scholarship competing in each category. However, nominees may compete simultaneously in multiple categories per awards cycle.
• While individuals nominated for all CSS Prizes do not need to be members, only members can nominate scholars for the CSS Prizes. Please visit the CSS’s Membership Page to join the CSS.

For more information regarding the eligibility of CSS Executive Board Members and information on past winners of the CSS Prizes, please see the CSS Website.

Frequency and time period: Prizes are awarded by the CSS at its annual conference for first-time publications (not reprints or revised editions) or (concerning the Chute only) unpublished work occurring during the previous calendar year. For example, the 2022 prizes will cover publications and presentations © 2021

Nomination process: Peer nominations and self-nominations are welcomed. Nomination letters are due March 25, 2022. The letter of nomination may take the form of an email and should do the following:

• Identify the work’s complete title, author(s) name(s), publisher, and original copyright date.
• Include means of access to a complete digital copy of the work (such as a PDF or ebook, a link to a paywall-free article or media text, media file, etc.) that members of the CSS Prize Committee can access as needed.

Nominations and inquiries should be sent by email to the CSS Awards Coordinator, Biz Nijdam, at comicssociety.awards@gmail.com.

Judging and awarding process: Nominees for each prize will be reviewed by an Awards Subcommittee of not less than three members of the Comics Studies Society, which is approved by the CSS Executive Board and includes the Awards Coordinator and/or the Awards Subcommittee Chair. Prize winners will be notified approximately two months prior to the annual conference and announcements of their award will be published on the CSS website and in Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society.– 
Dr. Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam  PhD (She, Her, Hers)
Lecturer, Dept. of Central, Eastern, & Northern European Studies
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus | Musqueam Traditional Territory
919-1873 East Mall | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z1 Canada | Phone 778 697 6294biz.nijdam@ubc.ca | elizabeth.nijdam@gmail.com | @bizabeth

A special issue of Scritture migranti seeks to explore the representation of migration narratives in the comics medium.

The current production of comics dealing with the theme of migration is blooming. Graphic memoirs, autobiographies, pieces of comics journalism, and ethno-graphic novels – just to mention a few genres – have drawn great attention to the past and contemporary international migrant experiences. Such a large and thriving production suggests reflecting on the role of comics as a specific medium to tell migration phenomena and encourages a further exploration on how new knowledge on migration can circulate through comics. Recent studies have approached migration from different perspectives, such as remembrance and portraying of the immigrant experience (Serrano 2021), postcolonialism (McKinney 2021), life narratives and memories (Nabizadeh 2019), traumatic pasts (Davies and Rifkind 2020), aspects of emotions (Humphrey 2017), politics and aesthetics (Earle 2020; Nabizadeh 2014), topographies (Rifkind 2017), and braided geographies (Davies 2019).

We are thus interested in a broad range of contributions to further explore the intersection between comics and migration and expand our understanding of how comics raise awareness of pressing migration issues. We therefore invite paper proposals from different disciplinary backgrounds that engage on how causes, mechanisms, and dynamics of migration are represented in comics form. To enrich our collective understanding of how comics work to shape our knowledge of migration, we suggest that the proposals consider the intersection of migration and comics from three main perspectives:

● regarding themes, discussing how migration narratives are conveyed in comics form;
● concerning knowledge production, investigating how comics are (co-)created, their material collected, and the result assembled, and the challenges associated with these processes;
● focusing on reception, taking into account the didactic use of comics dealing with migration, the ways comics are (and can be) used as a tool to disseminate academic research about migration, and the effects comics about migration (may) have on policy-making.

We invite contributions that explore the representation(s) of migration narratives mostly, but not exclusively, in contemporary works from different comics traditions and cultural backgrounds. Themes may include (but are not limited to):

● advocacy, activism strategies, and empowerment
● autobiographical and biographical comics
● minorities and new communities
● politics and ethics of representation
● participatory practices
● socio-cultural anthropology and ethnography
● comics journalism
● comics as propaganda

The deadline for the submission of a 300 word abstract and a short author note (100-150 words) is February 28, 2022. Contributions will be 40,000 characters maximum including spaces, notes and bibliography, and can be submitted in English, French, or Italian. Authors may include up to three images, whose copyright clearance must be obtained by the date of publication of the special issue. Editorial guidelines (with a reference template) and additional practical and stylistic information will be communicated upon acceptance of proposals.

Publication timeline:
Abstracts deadline: February 28, 2022
Notification of acceptance: March 15, 2022
Submission deadline: July 15, 2022
Peer review: by September 15, 2022
Delivery of final version of articles: November 1, 2022

Please address all enquiries to the editors crossingdrawnborders@gmail.com

The special issue editorial board:
Dr. Giorgio Busi Rizzi, Universiteit Gent
Prof. Natalie Dupré, KU Leuven
Prof. Inge Lanslots, KU Leuven
Alessia Mangiavillano, PhD Candidate, Coventry University

Call for Abstracts

Panel at the 15th World Congress of Semiotics,
»Semiotics in the Lifeworld«, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2022,
https://www.semioticsworld.com

Convened by Prof. Dr. Stephan Packard, University of Cologne, Germany, 
packard@uni-koeln.de

Please submit your abstract directly to Prof. Packard by **March 31st**. 
Paper abstracts should include: Name/Affiliation/e-mail of 
participant(s), Title, Abstract (200-250 words) and Keywords (up to 5).

Keywords: representational correspondence, ideology, cartoon, 
caricature, comic.

Caricature and cartoon – depictions of bodies and spaces that are reduced to few exaggerated, simple contours – are fundamentally historical phenomena, their functions situated in the lifeworld of the cultures that employ them. But research into cartoonish artforms and genres has rarely engaged with the cultural and historical diversity of the cartoon, wrongly taking the aesthetics of the modern European caricature for granted.

This panel invites discussion into the vast and varied cultural and historical array of cartoonised aesthetics, while narrowly focusing analysis on its most striking semiotic dimensions – those connected to the principle that Gregory Currie described as representational correspondence (2010): »for a given representational work, only certain features of the representation serve to represent features of the things represented«. Understood in this narratological approach as a license or accommodation for representation, the negotiable validity of some of the semiotic resources offered in a cartoonish picture invites debate and critique from pragmatic, ethical, and political points of view. Are stereotypical anamorphoses such as an enlarged nose, sharpened teeth, or exaggerated bosoms mere traditional and comical schemata without further reference, or do they denigrate, emphasize, connote, and reproduce hegemonic relations?

So far, even the most obvious connections to the traditions of European anti-semitic and colonial racist gazes have rarely been systematically analyzed (cf. Gray 2004), and deeper considerations of gender and class have been mostly focused on some of the most recent popular artforms (cf. e.g. Nolan 2008, Madrid 2016) and have yet to realize the analytical and explicatory potential of a dedicated semiotic study. The ideologies nested in the semiotic third space (Packard 2006, 2016; Wilde 2020) afforded between the reference and the exaggeration of the cartoon deserve greater and semiotically precise scrutiny.

University of Bonn,
Institute for Oriental and Asian Studies, Department for Islamic Studies and Near Eastern Languages
Organizers: Dr. Anna Kollatz, Dr. Veruschka Wagner
Date: 15–16 Dec. 2022, Bonn

The century between 1850 and 1950 can be described, in a global perspective, as a century of transitions. During these years, a multitude of profound changes hit the world in many ways, such as in political, social and societal dimensions. Modernization processes, new concepts of education, the discussion of women’s rights and participation in political decision-making are just a few examples. The period is also strongly influenced by Western colonialism and imperialism, at least in its beginnings, while also seeing emancipation movements against these hegemonies.
In this very fluid transition period, which was of course also marked by conflicts, discourses emerged that were conducted with similar themes and similar communication media in different parts of the world, but also in global exchange. Among others, this period saw a veritable boom in satirical journals that addressed the mentioned transformative strands and conflicts, notably also by caricatures.
This conference ventures into taking stock of satirical discourses communicated in caricatures in a transcultural, comparative way. We invite colleagues from a wide range of disciplines to present case studies and engage in dialogue across disciplinary boundaries.
The conference will be organized along the following thematic lenses:

Comparing Style and Content:
Figures and stereotypes
Painting techniques
Settings
Text-Context relations in (satire) journals

Functions and Objectives of Caricatures as:
Criticizing tools
Propaganda
Educative tools
Entertainment (with a hidden agenda)

Thematic Strands:
Discussing modernization and progress
Technological utopia and dystopia
Gender questions
Political and social questions

Proposals may be sent to caricatures@uni-bonn.de until March 15, 2022. Abstracts (roughly 200 words) should describe the proposed paper/panel, including topic, method, and used sources. Comparative papers/panels that examine a fixed topic in transcultural perspective (two or more regions, languages, etc. involved) are especially welcome.

http://www.islamwissenschaft.uni-bonn.de

New Deadline: 28.2.2022

[French version below]

Comics are a genuinely transnational medium (Denson/Meyer/Stein 2014). They are not merely products of uniform national or linguistic communities, but they are also shaped by cross-border relations, transfers and circulations. This applies in particular to French- and German-speaking graphic storytelling. 

The goal of this special issue that will be published in The Journal of Comics and Culture is to study Franco-German relations in the world of comics/BD. A huge corpus on the study of these relations exists already but mostly, if not exclusively, in the field of high culture. Using the concept of transfer, we want to study how these transfers happened in the world of BD/Comics.

The following ideas are simple suggestions and are not exhaustive:

Was Busch’s work read in France (and in Belgium, Switzerland?) ? And which translations, legal or not, circulated in French? Was Vater und Sohn d’e.o.plauen in the 1930s read in Alsace-Lorraine and how was it interpreted? Some Germanophone comic artists (e.g., Schultheiss) emigrated to France and/or Belgium to publish their BD. Who are these “emigrants”? and can we find common points among these Francophile comics artists? Both France and Germany experienced periods of anti-Americanism. Did this influence the reception and image of Franco-Belgian and German comics respectively? What is the story of the translation of Astérix in German-speaking countries? (by the publisher Kauka; and in Austria? In East Germany?) Was there/what was the influence of the French ‘avant-gardiste’ comics group around L’Association on the German-speaking Comic Worlds? Was there a difference between the reception of francophone comics in East and West Germany? Were East German comic artists welcomed differently than the ones from West Germany? What to say about comics exhibitions in the Goethe-Institute in France? Did Germany and/or Austria organize expositions on francophone BDs (Where? When? Why? What was shown and what was not?). Does German-language research on comics/BD have regular or institutional contact with research in France and other francophone countries? What types? Zep had an enormous success in France. What about in Germany? Was/Has he been more successful in Switzerland because he is Swiss? Which French-language BD were published in German journals? Were some issues translated and published in France? And which German comics were translated into French and why?

Please send a 300-word proposal including your methodological-theoretical perspective, and a 100-word bio-bibliography to: bettina.egger@gmail.com , sylvia.kesper-biermann@uni-hamburg.de , pmalone@uwaterloo.ca & reynschi@ualberta.ca .

Deadlines: send proposals by Feb. 28, 2022; reply acceptance: March 15; full 6000-word article: mid-Jul. 2022; evaluation and feedback end of Jul.; finished version mid-Dec. 2022; send full issue to journal for evaluation in Jan.; reply from the journal, with new possible editing: about 4-5 months in 2023; publication in The Journal of Comics and Culture end of 2023.

Appel à participation : Influences et transferts entre le monde de la BD francophone et le monde des comics germanophones (19^e au 21^e s.)

Les BD sont véritablement un média transnational (Denson/Meyer/Stein 2014). Elles ne sont pas simplement des produits venant de communautés nationales ou linguistiques uniformes mais elles sont aussi informées par des relations, transferts et circulations transfrontalières. Ceci s’applique en particulier aux récits graphiques en langues française et allemande.

Le but de ce numéro spécial est d’étudier les relations franco-allemandes dans le monde de la BD. Nous aidant du concept de transfert développé dans le domaine de la littérature comparée entre ces deux zones linguistiques, nous nous proposons d’étudier comment ces transferts se sont faits dans le monde des BD/Comics. 

Les pistes ci-après sont de simples propositions et ne sont pas exhaustives: Quelles traductions en français de l’œuvre de Busch, légales ou pas, ont circulé? Quelle est l’histoire de la traduction d’Astérix en pays germanophones? Quels comics allemands furent traduits en français et pourquoi? Un certain nombre de bédéistes germanophones (e.g., Schultheiss) ont émigré en France et/ou en Belgique pour publier leurs BD. Qui sont ces « émigrants »? Et peut-on trouver des points communs entre ces bédéistes francophiles? Vater und Sohn d’e.o.plauen dans les années 1930 était-elle lue en Alsace-Lorraine et comment était-elle interprétée? Quelles BD furent publiées dans les magazines de langue allemande? Des numéros de ces magazines furent-ils traduits en France? La France et l’Allemagne ont eu des périodes d’anti-Américanisme. Cela a-t-il eu une influence sur la réception et l’image des BD Franco-Belges et des comics allemands respectivement? Y a-t-il eu une différence entre la réception des BD francophone en Allemagne de l’Est et de l’Ouest ? Les bédéistes de la RDA ont-t-ils été accueillis différemment de ceux/celles de la RFA? Que dire des expositions BD/Comics du Goethe-Institut en France? L’Allemagne et/ou l’Autriche a-t-elle organisé des expositions sur la BD francophones? La recherche sur la BD/comics en pays germanophones a-t-elle des contacts réguliers, institutionnels avec celle de France et des pays francophones? Zep a été un immense succès en France. Et en Allemagne, comment fut-il reçu? A-t-il eu plus de succès en Suisse allemande parce que l’auteur est suisse?

Envoyez-nous une proposition de 300 mots, incluant votre perspective méthodologique et théorique, et une bio-bibliographie de 100 mots, à : bettina.egger@gmail.com , sylvia.kesper-biermann@uni-hamburg.de , pmalone@uwaterloon.ca, et reynschi@ualberta.ca .

Dates-limites: Réception des propositions pour le 28 février 2022; réponse: 15 mars 2022; article complet: 15 juillet 2022; évaluation et commentaires: fin juillet 2022; version finale: mi-déc. 2022; envoi du numéro complet à la revue : fin jan. 2023; évaluation par la revue : ~4-5 mois en  2023; possibles nouvelles corrections ; publication dans la revue The Journal of Comics and Culture fin 2023.

Representing History in/as Comics: Ethics and Choice

CALL FOR PAPERS
We are hosting a 5-day combined conference, with traditional paper presentations and workshops, as well as round table discussions and practical workshop sessions, to address questions of ethics and choice in the depiction of history, the use of history, or historicizing elements appearing in graphic novels, comic books, comic strips, editorial cartoons, and newer forms of image/text such as webcomics and Internet memes. We welcome a broad interpretation of the topic, to be examined by scholars and comics creators alike. This event will take place in blended form, with both in-person and remote options for participation. Students and doctoral candidates receive 3 ECTS credits for their participation, and there will be no registration fees.

We now invite proposals for 20-minute PAPERS for the conference part of the event. Possible themes include, but are not limited to:
• Regional history in comics • Significant historical events • Representation of perpetrators • Family history • Big history • Ethics and the Anthropocene • Natural history and the history of humans in nature • War and conflict • National mythologies • Biographical and autobiographical comics • Comics journalism • Documentary comics • Ethical concerns of the comics format • Artistic choice in representation • Multimodality and ethics • Comics used in teaching history.

We are also accepting proposals for other types of submissions:

● For the round table discussions, please submit up to three question proposals to be addressed by the round tables, related (but not limited) to the themes above. Please include the term “ROUND TABLE QUESTIONS” in your email subject line.

● Posters, especially welcome for students or first-time conference participants, on any of the themes listed above. Please include the term “POSTER SESSION” in your email subject line. Please submit your question proposals, paper proposal (200 words or less), along with a short biography (100 words or less) by email to elizabethallyn.woock@upol.cz by April 1st 2022. Please specify if you anticipate attending in person or remotely.
In the case of pandemic restrictions, the event will be moved fully online.

Keynote speaker and guests to be announced; please follow updates at Historyincomics.org.

For further information please contact:
Elizabeth Allyn Woock: elizabethallyn.woock@upol.cz
Dragos Manea: dragos.manea@lls.unibuc.ro
Mihaela Precup: mihaela.precup@lls.unibuc.ro
Ezster Szep: eszterszep@gmail.com
Barbara Postema: b.postema@rug.nl
Johannes Schmid: johannes.schmid@uni-flensburg.de

Organized by Palacky University and the Erasmus+ BIP project “History in Comics”
www.HistoryinComics.org