Call for Papers: Transitions 4 - New Directions in Comics Studies

A call for papers for Transitions 4 - New Directions in Comics Studies has just been published.

Transitions will be a one-day symposium at the University of London in November, promoting new research and multi-disciplinary academic study  of comics, comix, manga, bande dessinée and other forms of sequential art.


Now in its fourth year, the Keynote will be given by Dr. Ann Miller (University of Leicester, joint editor of European Comic Art), with response from Dr. Roger Sabin (Central St. Martins, University of the Arts London).

Transitions is currently the only regular academic comics event based in London.  The symposium provides a platform where different perspectives and methodologies can be brought together and shared.  As an event devoted to promoting new research into comics in all their forms the symposium provides a forum for research from postgraduate students and early career lecturers.

Comics studies occupy a unique multi-disciplinary middle-space, one that encourages cross-disciplinary pollination and a convergence of distinct knowledges: literary and cultural studies, visual arts and media, modern languages, sociology, geography and more.
By thinking about comics across different disciplines, we hope to stimulate and provoke debate and to address a wide spectrum of questions, to map new trends and provide a space for dialogue and further collaboration to emerge.

The organisers welcome abstracts for twenty minute papers of 250 - 300 words.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

International iterations: manga, bande dessinée , fumetti etc. – children’s comics – superheroes – non-fiction comics – the (im)materiality of comics – formalist approaches – cultural histories –adaptation/ remediation – autographics – early comics – comic strips – small press –alternative comics/ underground commix – comics narratologies – political comics – comics and cultural theory – contexts of production and circulation - audiences – comics and the archive – subjectivity in comics – graphic medicine – fan subcultures – comics as historiography – key creators

• Proposals for papers should be sent as Word documents, with a short biography appended. Abstracts should be submitted by the 30th July 2013 to Hallvard, Tony and Nina at transitions.symposium@gmail.com.

• Transitions will take place on Saturday 2nd November 2013 at the School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX

Transitions 3 - Keynote announced

The Transitions symposium is fast approaching, taking place on Saturday 3rd November at Birkbeck College, London.



Transitions is a one-day symposium promoting new research and multi-disciplinary academic study of comics/ comix/ manga/ bande dessinée and other forms of sequential art.

The keynote will come from Dr. Julia Round (Bournemouth University) and Dr. Chris Murray (University of Dundee), editors of Studies in Comics and Dr. Roger Sabin (Central St. Martins).

Transitions is part of Comica 2012, the London International Comics Festival, and is organised in association with Birkbeck, University of London; the School of Film and Television Studies and the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia; Studies in Comics (Intellect), European Comic Art (Berghahn), Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Routledge), the Contemporary Fiction Seminar and The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship.

This event is free, but please register your attendance by email at transitions[dot]symposium[at]gmail[dot]com

• The programme can  be accessed here on the Comica web site and here. 

Comics & Conflicts Conference at the Imperial War Museum: Call for Papers

London's Imperial War Museum is organising a Comics & Conflicts Conference (curated by Panel Borders Alex Fitch) in August, aimed at comics scholars, practitioners, and enthusiasts.

Taking place on 19th-20th August, conference speakers and guests will include Charley’s War creator Pat Mills, Martin Barker and Roger Sabin on Doonesbury; Garth Ennis (Troubled Souls, War Story); Jacques Tardi (It Was The War Of The Trenches) and Jean-Pierre Verney (Putain de Guerre). Paul Gravett will chair.

Further details of this very special event (including details on the keynote speakers, special guests and registration) will be announced on the Comica News Blog.

Papers for the conference are welcomed that explore the ways in which comics around the world represent and articulate the experience and impact of war and conflict. For example, topics may include:

• Depictions of conflict in comics created for children.
• Representations of trauma in comic books, graphic novels, manga and other forms of international comics.
• Visual representations of conflict in such places as Afghanistan, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, The Middle East, Northern Ireland, and Vietnam.
• Journalism, biography, and memoir in comics on conflict.
• Focus on key practitioners such as Guibert, Kubert, Mills, Sacco, Satrapi, Spiegelman, Tardi & Trudeau.
• Comics as a space to depict/critique national ideology.
• Comics as tools of propaganda, both of the state and of protest organisations.

In the first instance please email abstracts of 250 words, with a brief author biography, to a.kahn@roehampton.ac.uk, including ‘Comics & Conflicts 2011’ in the subject heading. The deadline for submissions is 31st March, 2011.

The Comics & Conflicts Conference is organised by Ariel Kahn, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Roehampton University, Alex Fitch, presenter of Panel Borders, the UK’s only weekly broadcast radio show about comics, and Paul Gravett, Director of Comica.

The Comics & Conflicts Conference will form part of a larger literary festival being held from 13-21 August 2011, which accompanies the Imperial War Museum’s new exhibition Once Upon A Wartime: Classic War Stories for Children.

• For more information about the exhibition and the festival visit the Imperial War Museum web site.