CFP: Transitions 4, Birkbeck, UoL.

from Nina Mickwitz:

Dear comics scholars,

this is to inform you all that the date for Transitions 4 – New directions in Comics Studies has been moved forward by a week, with a reminder that our call for papers is open until the end of July.

Transitions will now take place on Saturday the 26th of October 2013, at Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX

We are pleased to announce that Dr Ann Miller (University of Leicester, joint editor of European Comic Art) will be giving the keynote, and that Dr Roger Sabin (Central St. Martins, University of the Arts London) has kindly agreed to act as respondent.

Transitions is currently the only regular academic comics event based in London, and is part of Comica – The London International Comics Festival.  The symposium offers 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.
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.

We welcome abstracts for twenty minute papers of 250 – 300 words and 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 of July 2013 to Hallvard, Tony and Nina at transitions.symposium@gmail.com.