CFP: Comics in Medicine & Teaching / U of Nebraska (Feb. 23; Apr. 9-10)

CFP:

Comics in Medicine & Teaching:

Rethinking Comics as a Therapeutic

and Educational Tool

with Ian Williams and Paul Karasik

University of Nebraska - Kearney Colloquium

Kearney, Nebraska

April 9-10, 2015

Call for Papers, Posters, or Artwork
Although seen primarily as a form of entertainment for children and young adults, the potential of comic books as an educational tool was recognized very early on. The comic book in its modern form first appeared in the 1930s, and it was not long before the form’s educational potential was tapped with Classic Comics #1 (later Classics Illustrated), an adaptation of The Three Musketeers, first appearing in 1941.

Educators continue to experiment with comic books and graphic novels, and apply them in many different ways. They are wide ranging in their applicability, and flexible enough to be a tool for teaching literacy (e.g., Frey & Fisher, 2008; Monnin, 2013), the complexities of calculus (Gonick, 2011), or the nuance of business management (Short, Bauer, Ketchen, & Simon, 2011). In the field of medicine and mental/behavioral health, research is beginning to investigate comics and graphic novels as a tool for assisting patients and their families to construct and express their lived experiences of illness. Some initial applications have explored the use of graphic novels to convey family members’ painful experiences with hospice care for loved ones dying of terminal illnesses (Czerwiec & Huang, 2014) and with a loved one’s disability (Karasik & Karasik, 2004). Williams (2012) argues that the patient experience can be more fully understood through comic books and graphic novels because they integrate visual representations with narrative.

If you are involved in research or practice exploring the educational and therapeutic uses of the comic book, please consider submitting a proposal to share your work at a dynamic, interactive colloquium dedicated to rethinking the role of comics. We welcome abstracts describing creative work that has explored the interface of comic books/graphic novels in the fields of medicine or education. The creative work could be presented as a paper or poster presentation or as an actual work of art.

Submission Process
Submissions may be done electronically (Word, PDF, or RTF file format) to
ospcolloquium@unk.edu.

For Paper or Poster presentation, include the following information:

1. Title
2. Author(s) - include affiliation, email address, phone number
3. Abstract (up to 250 words)
4. Choice of presentation format: Paper presentation or Poster

For Creative Work/Artwork, include the following information:

1. Title
2. Dimension
3. Media
4. Artist Statement (1-3 paragraphs)
5. Author - include affiliation, email address, phone number

Priority consideration will be given to submissions received by February 23, 2015 at midnight CST. Submissions will be considered until March 15, 2015.

If you have questions, please contact:
David K. Palmer, Ph.D.
University of Nebraska at Kearney
palmerd@unk.edu

Call for Manuscripts: ACME Comics Research Book Series (ongoing)

Call for Manuscripts:

ACME Comics Research

Book Series

The ACME Comics Research Group and the University Press of Liege (PULg) invite the submission of manuscripts on the study of comics/BD/manga/cartoons/graphic novels for the scholarly book series ACME. The ACME Book Series is bilingual: manuscripts in English and French are accepted.

The books in this series examine comics/BD/manga or dialogues between comics/BD/manga and other media (literature, film, new media, video games, the fine arts and so on). ACME is interdisciplinary and welcomes all theoretical perspectives, methodologies and backgrounds (literary studies, post-colonial studies, art history, semiotics, aesthetics, cultural studies, etc.). The aim of the series is to mirror the contextual, socio-political and formal diversity of the medium and its analysis as well as its interrelation with other forms of expression; contributions on adaptation, hybrid media and intermediality in the widest sense are therefore also welcome.

Please send a short description of the work (500-1000 words), a table of contents, a sample chapter together with a brief bio-bibliography with institution affiliation (if any) to members of the ACME editorial team, i.e., Aarnoud Rommens (aarnoud.rommens@ulg.ac.be), Björn-Olav Dozo (bo.dozo@ulg.ac.be) or Gert Meesters (gert.meesters@univ-lille3.fr). Please keep in mind that in this call we are looking for finished manuscripts (monographs, edited collections of essays, revised doctoral dissertations, etc.) or manuscripts near completion.

About ACME
A comics research group based at the University of Liège (Belgium), ACME gathers scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds who explore the form using various critical approaches, including art history, sociology, aesthetics and philosophy, semiotics, formalism, linguistics, literary and cognitive studies. The name of the group explicitly refers to Chris Ware’s project Acme Novelty Library whose innovative nature illustrates in its own way the ambitions of ACME within the academic world and beyond. The name ACME is also inspired by another eponymous model, i.e., the Warner Brothers cartoon corporation’s famous motto boasting that it is “a company that makes everything.” On the one hand, this maxim attests to the group’s embrace of interdisciplinarity. On the other, it expresses ACME’s conviction that comics studies deserve more than a marginal place in academia. For more information, visit http://www.acme.ulg.ac.be/ (English and French).

For more information on the University Press of Liege (PULg), please visit http://www.presses.ulg.ac.be/

CFP: SANE Journal (April 27)

Call for Papers

SANE Journal

April 27, 2015

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Researchers, scholars, teachers, administrators, specialists, and advanced graduate students are invited to submit works of research, reviews, and rationales. The mission of SANE Journal is to promote research regarding the integration of comic books, graphic novels, or “other” sequential art narratives in educational settings; including the teaching of comics or the ways in which the comics medium can instruct or cause a change in behavior. Manuscripts should be submitted by April 27 2015, with an anticipated publication date of July 2015.

SANE Journal is a peer-reviewed, open access interdisciplinary journal covering all things comics-and-education-related, from pre-k to doctorate. For more information, email Richard Graham (rgraham7@unl.edu). Articles can be submitted for review and possible inclusion by visiting: http://www.sanejournal.net/.

CFP: Illustration, Comics, and Animation Conference (March 1; May 8-10)

General Call for Papers

Illustration, Comics,

and Animation Conference

Dartmouth College

May 8-10

What is the future of illustration studies? 

What can comics scholars learn from animation studies and vice versa?\ 

Do illustrated books or graphic novels resist the supposed obsolescence of the book? What do pictures want (now)?

These and related questions will be explored at the Illustration, Comics, and Animation Conference at Dartmouth College to be held May 8-10, 2015.

Scholars interested in the illustrated image in all of its mediated guises are invited to participate in this interdisciplinary conference. Nearly all illustrated or drawn ‘texts’ are eligible for consideration:

• comics and graphic novels
• cartoons and animated films
• picture books
• illustrated books

And given the uniquely plenary nature of the conference, which brings together scholarship on static and moving illustrations, preference will be given to proposals that seek to bridge visual media. Possible topics may include:

• Individual titles by prominent practitioners in the field
• Identity, subjectivity, authority, ideology or culture in or more type of illustration media
• The future of particular schools of criticism (psychoanalysis, critical race theory, phenomenology, Marxism, feminism, queer theory, post-colonialism, formalism, aesthetic theories, etc.) and one or more type of illustration media
• The contributions of archives and libraries to the study of comics, animation, and illustration.

The location of the conference may also be a source of inspiration for prospective participants. Not only does Dartmouth College lie in close proximity to the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont, it is also the origin of Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss, a Dartmouth graduate of the Class of 1925.

Individual papers should be no longer than 20 minutes. Panels shall be ninety minutes long and should be comprised of three presenters and one chair. Please send 300 word abstracts and a brief bio for each proposed paper no later than March 1, 2015.

Send all proposals and inquiries to:
Michael A. Chaney <michael.chaney@dartmouth.edu>

CFP: 6th Int'l Conference: Comics & Medicine (Jan. 30; July 16-18)

Call for Papers

6th International Conference

Comics and Medicine

16th – 18th July 2015

Culver Arts Center

University of California, Riverside

Theme
The theme of this year’s conference, Spaces of Care, invites us to think about space as a critical element in health care and comics. Receiving medical treatment can affect how we relate to and interact with each other and our environments. Medical care is often thought of as taking place primarily in clinical spaces. A strength of comics is their ability to visualize care beyond these settings to include geographic, physical, ideological, imaginative, temporal, and social spaces. We invite the submission of a wide variety of abstracts focusing on medicine and comics in any form (e.g. graphic novels, comic strips, manga, web comics) that examine topics including, but not limited to:

• Comics depictions of architecture and design and their impact on illness and disability
• Comics representations of physical spaces that impact the delivery of medical care
• Use of comics to imagine new spaces for well-being and care
• The use of comics in creating internal bodily spaces in medical education and illustration
• The materiality of comics as a space for expressing or demonstrating care
• The use of space in comics to evoke intersubjective understandings of health and illness narratives
• The use of comics to visualize geographical, ideological, and/or political boundaries and access to medical therapies
• Ethical implications of creating comics for patients, physicians, or institutions
• Trends in, histories of, or the use of comics in healthcare
• The interface of graphic medicine and popular culture

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

• Carol Tyler – You’ll Never Know
• Justin Green – Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary
• Steven Keewatin Sanderson – Darkness Calls, Invited Threat
• Jared Gardner – Projections: Comics and the History of 21st Century Storytelling

For more information go to graphicmedicine.org

Formats

• Lightning talks: 5-minute presentations with up to 15 slides. This format is meant to encourage submission of short presentations to share your work (e.g. comics, new research projects, new ideas) in a concise format.
• Oral presentations: 15- to 20-minute presentations.
• Panel discussions: 90-minute interviews or presentations by a panel of speakers
• Workshops: 90-minute sessions intended to be “hands-on” interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular skills with regard to comics and medicine. Suggested subjects for workshops are:
• creating comics
• understanding, reviewing, and critiquing comics
• getting comics published
• teaching and learning with comics

Submission Process
Proposals may be in Word, PDF, or RTF formats with the following information in this order:
author(s)

• affiliation
• email address
• phone number
• title of abstract
• body of abstract
• sample images or web links to work being discussed
• presentation preference (see format options above)
• equipment needed (e.g. AV projection, whiteboard, easel, etc.)

300-word proposals should be submitted online by Friday, January 30, 2015 to: graphic.medicine.conference@gmail.com

Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by the week of March 30th, 2015. While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice of presentation format, we will attempt to honor preferences, and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals.

Please note: Presenters are responsible for session expenses (e.g. handouts and supplies) and personal expenses (travel, hotel, and registration fees). All presenters must register for the conference.