Where We Are Now an International Conference on Art and Social Justice Nov 4
October 26, 2017
Serious study of comic art: International conference comes to UW Nov. ii-4
Poster for the 2017 International Comic Arts Forum, Nov. 2-4 at the UW and elsewhere in Seattle.Jim Woodring
Comics and graphic tin can be serious business. Scholars, critics, historians, teachers, curators of comic art and graphic publications will gather at the University of Washington and locations in Seattle Nov. 2-four for the 2017 International Comic Arts Forum.
The forum is an annual academic briefing whose stated mission is to promote "the scholarly report and appreciation of comic art, including comic strips, comic books, comics albums and graphic novels, mag and newspaper cartooning, caricature, and comics in electronic media." All conference events are open to the public.
Started in 1995 at Georgetown University, the forum has become one of the leading conferences for those who written report comic and graphic art. Chairing the conference executive commission is José Alaniz, UW acquaintance professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, who has an adjunct appointment in the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema, and Media.
Alaniz answered a few questions about the conference, and the earth of comic and graphic art, for UW Today.
How can comic art reflect, or exist on the edge of, social trends?
J.A.: The work of keynote speaker Ramzi Fawaz of the University of Wisconsin speaks straight to that question. His 2016 book, "The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics," deals at length with post-state of war superheroes and their dynamic, utopian reimagining of political reality during the Cold War.
More than than that, information technology gets at what for many of united states who discovered superhero comics in childhood or adolescence represents a central attribute of their power: They show you new and unthought-of means to behave, new personality types to try on, new powers to unlock, at a time when your ain identity is even so very much in flux or coming into being.
Larn more nearly the 2017 International Comic Arts Forum:
Where, when: HUB and other Seattle locations, Nov. 2-4
Come across conference schedule.
Conference sponsors:
Simpson Center for the Humanities, Nihon Studies Programme and many others.
Where to begin with comic and graphic art?
Suggestions from José Alaniz:
The Comics Periodical
Comics UK, an online forum
The International Journal of Comic Fine art
Inks, the journal of the Comics Studies Society
"My Favorite Thing is Monsters," past conference participant Emil Ferris, which Alaniz calls "the comics event of the year."
Ferris volition discuss her piece of work and career in the context of inability culture at iv p.thousand. Monday, Nov. 6, in Room 220 of Odegaard Library.
Also on campus:
Library exhibit: "Comic Arts, Local and Global," in the Allen Library North Lobby, through November. 30.
And all in the realm of fantasy. Although, as Fawaz and others have pointed out, fantasy has very real power to shape the "real world": Women's suffrage, civil rights movements, gay liberation — all were fueled by aspirations and dreams for a better world, which many (peradventure the majority) of people in those eras would accept dismissed as impossible, "mere" fantasy.
Posthumanism, the public/individual sides of managing identity, problems associated with masculinity and whiteness, the fight against fascism — all class a large part of our national discourse now, but superheroes accept been grappling with these questions since the genre emerged in the 1930s, and certainly since the 1960s, which Fawaz examines in depth.
In his ICAF keynote, Fawaz volition talk about the Legion of Superheroes, a futuristic DC serial which amounts to a sort of super-Starfleet made upwards of diverse super-powered humans and aliens living (by and large) in peace. I can think of no better example of what Fawaz calls a "comic book cosmopolitics."
The conference will feature sessions on topics from comics in history to their use every bit political tools. What tin can a gathering like this accomplish?
J.A.: Events like ICAF demonstrate the viability and academic rigor of Comics Studies, too every bit the long-standing, central place comic fine art has in various cultures. We join a diverse, international group of scholars, at many career stages, to present and talk over their work in a supportive, intensely interdisciplinary, highly specialized but accessible setting. We also recognize upwards-and-coming scholars through the prestigious John A. Lent Scholarship and lecture, which highlights student research.
Speaking more than specifically most our event: The stringent bullheaded review process nosotros use insures a very high quality of academic papers and panels, while our industry/artist guests' presence and interactions make ICAF much more than a solely academic effect. We think all parties benefit from this format: Our attendees get access to world-class comics scholarship and artists, while those artists get to respond to questions they will not hear at a regular festival or comic con, questions by leading specialists in the history and sociocultural significance of comic art — as well as fans.
Nosotros are also excited to accept on our phase two stellar international figures. Jesús Cossio, a renowned comics announcer from Peru, will present a solo talk every bit well as take function in a roundtable on comics journalism with Joe Sacco and Sarah Glidden, which sounds like such a dream team! Then we have Moto Hagio, a living legend of Japanese manga, coming from Nihon to give a talk. Either of those events would be more than worth the price of admission – if we charged it!
Finally, this year we are thrilled to exist collaborating on programming with Seattle'south Brusk Run Comix & Arts Festival (taking identify November 4) and, for the 2d conference in a row, with the Comics Studies Society, the starting time dues-paying professional organization for comics scholars.
"My Favorite Thing is Monsters," past conference participant Emil Ferris, published by Seattle's Fantagraphics Books. Ferris will make a campus appearance November. 6.
What is "comics theory," and how might information technology be defined for the non-academic?
J.A.: Comics Theory simply refers to the written report of how comics communicate in unique means, chiefly through juxtaposed sequential images – i.e. pictures in sequence – which map fourth dimension onto space. In other words, when y'all read comics you are traversing fourth dimension (each panel represents a loosely-divers moment in the story) as well every bit space (your eye goes from panel to panel down the page).
The comics medium also often combines different symbolic registers such as text and images – though comics don't need words, equally seen in much of the work of Seattle cartoonist Jim Woodring. Simply really, that's only scratching the surface. Find too I said zippo about superheroes or funny animals. Comics have no limits on their content, no more than than any other fine art form. And some version of comics exists in every civilisation beyond the globe.
A review of Fawaz's volume said it "will become a long way toward making comics an acceptable medium of report in academia." How has academia reacted to the written report of comics?
J.A.: The days when studying comics in college made for controversy seem pretty far behind united states of america now. Of import graphic memoirs such as "Maus" by Art Spiegelman, "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi and "Fun Domicile" past Alison Bechdel have demonstrated that comics represent non simply a very rich part of our cultural patrimony and contemporary culture, they tin address even the most difficult personal/historical topics (the Holocaust, the Iranian revolution, coming out equally gay) in nuanced and unique ways.
"The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics," by Ramzi Fawaz, keynote speaker for the 2017 ICAF.NYU Press
The adoption of comics in college courses dealing with history, gender, mass communications, war, disability and Islam attest to comic fine art'due south worthiness as a subject of study. (I myself am education courses on Wonder Woman and animals in graphic narrative this quarter.)
Information technology's taken decades, but we take reached Comics Studies critical mass, with an array of dedicated conferences (including Comics and Medicine, whose 2017 iteration I also helped organize in Seattle) and topic areas of conferences (such as the Modernistic Language Association, the Popular Culture Association and the American Library Association); and several new journals. We at ICAF are proud of the role we've played in making possible the acceptance and unrepentant advancement of comics as a legitimate art form and comics studies as a field characterized past its interdisciplinarity.
What brings this conference to the UW?
J.A.: The ICAF represents the well-nigh important annual gathering of comics scholars in North America. Since my ain association with it starting in the late '90s, though, it always seemed to me a very East Coast phenomenon. (You can read more about our history here.)
We had started moving abroad from that region by the late-2000s, but when the ICAF Executive Commission elected me chair in 2011, I knew I wanted to do all I could to take the conference to parts of the country information technology had never gone. So, in 2013, we brought ICAF to the Academy of Oregon. And information technology was wonderful. Since then, every conference under my tenure as chair has taken identify in a new location for usa.
You lot accept written books on Russian comic art and on analyzing through the lens of disability. What's side by side for you in this field?
J.A.: I take lots of projects cooking, including a follow-up to my first book, tentatively titled "Resurrection: Comics in Post-Soviet Russia," which deals with the enormous changes in the Russian comics scene since the plummet of communism, and specially in the Putin era. Too in progress: "Beautiful Monsters: Disability in Alternative Comics" and a monograph on the representation of history in Czech graphic narrative.
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For more than information, contact Alaniz at 206-543-7580 or jos23@uw.edu.
- Read a characteristic story most Alaniz past Matthew Leib of The Whole U.
UW presenters at the 2017 ICAF:
Friday, Nov. 3
- History doctoral student Emily Marie Anderson Hall volition discuss "Resistance by Design: Kim Songwhan's 'Mr. Kobau' and the Rise of the Editorial Cartoonists in South Korea" in a session on New Perspectives on Asian Comics.
Sat, Nov. 4
- Communication doctoral student Meshell Sturgis will discuss "The AmBIGuous Penny Rolle from 'Bowwow Planet' " in a session on The Comics of Kelly Sue DeConnick.
- Rachel Kunert-Graf, an English Ph.D. now with Shoreline Community College, will discuss "History Returns: Comics Designed for the Classroom" in a session titled History, Ephemerality and Retention moderated by Alaniz.
- Nancy White Iff, a lecturer in the Comparative History of Ideas Programme, volition hash out "A Identify for Every Woman and Every Woman in Her Identify: 'Bowwow Planet' as a Forum for Geek Feminism" in a session titled Genre Comics and Social Justice.
- Paul Morton, a graduate educatee in the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema, and Media, will discuss "Inventing the Lonely Machine: Jules Feiffer and Hugh Hefner'due south Collaboration in the Pages of Playboy" in a session titled Comics and the Culture Wars moderated by Alaniz.
Tag(s): Department of Slavic Languages and Literature • Jose Alaniz
Source: https://www.washington.edu/news/2017/10/26/serious-study-of-comic-art-international-conference-comes-to-uw-nov-2-4/
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