ImageTexT at the University of Florida invites applicants to submit full-length articles (6,000-10,000 words) on Traumics: Comics Narratives of Trauma by Nov. 1, 2015.

Traumics are, simply put, comics plus trauma. With their syntax of panels, gutters, and pages and their use of the evocative power of image in conjunction with the precise communication of text, comics are uniquely suited to delivering narratives of trauma. The relationship of trauma (especially childhood trauma) to the comics medium is a thread that runs throughout Hillary L. Chute’s 2010 Graphic Women: Life Narrative & Contemporary Comics, a book which is structured around exploring the works of five autobiographical comics artists (Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Phoebe Gloeckner, Lynda Barry, Marjane Satrapi, and Alison Bechdel). By their very nature, comics provide a potentially ideal means through which to tell those stories that require the fragmentation and reconstruction of events of high drama and emotional intensity. The juxtaposition of images on the comic page make comics what might be considered a ‘natural’ fit for exploring the concept of “Remembering, repeating, and working-through” examined so in-depth in Cathy Caruth’s seminal 1996 work on trauma, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History.

More than two decades ago, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-winning opus, Maus, changed the way much of the reading public views comics, and is now one of the most iconic and recognizable Holocaust narratives to be studied in the classroom or found on bookstore shelves. Since the turn of the century, autobiographical comics like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and Phoebe Gloeckner’s Diary of a Teenage Girl have all been released to great critical acclaim. Epileptic, David B.’s autobiographical exploration of medical trauma, hugged the transition from the 1900s to the 2000s, with its original French release running from 1996 to 2003; more recently, David Small’s autobiographical Stitches (2009) also forced a spotlight on medical trauma, using bold, rough graphics to recount the horror of a child’s battle with cancer. Robert Kirkman’s zombie survival horror comic The Walking Dead (which began its run in 2003 and continues today) has captured the American cultural imagination, with its adaptations ranging from a television show and video game to a prominent role in the most recent Halloween Horror Nights attraction at Universal Studios. Comics and war narratives (as well as war reporting) have also gone hand-in-hand for many years; just this November, noted war comics writer and artist Joe Sacco released his latest work, The Great War, which tells the story of the first day of the Battle of the Somme in one continuous, 24-foot drawing. Comics have become one of the most important and visible venues through which a 21st-century audience understands, imagines, and works through traumatic events.
We invite papers from all disciplines on the theme of “traumics: comics narratives of trauma.”

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Comics and Journalism (Example: Guibert, Lefevre and Lemercier’s The Photographer)
• Comics and Autobiography / Graphic Memoir (Examples: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, David B.’s Epileptic, Phoebe Gloeckner’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl and A Child’s Life, David Small’s Stitches), Lynda Barry’s 1000 Demons
• Comics as Blogging / In blogging (Example: Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half)
• Violence in the Comics and Cultural Responses (Examples: “mainstream” violence in Marvel and DC comics, violence and the Comics Code Authority)
• Comics Go to War / Comics About War / Comics Read and/or Written on the Front Lines (Examples: The ‘Nam, Commando Comics)
• Generational Trauma (Examples: Carol Tyler’s You Never Know, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, )
• The Traumatic Oeuvre of Joe Sacco
• Art Spiegelman’s Maus and its Critical Reception
• How Comics Represent Trauma / Traumatic Experiences in the Comics
• Trauma and Sexuality in the Comics (Example: in the work of Alan Moore)
• Rape and Sexual Assault in the Comics / The Discussion Thereof (See: The controversy surrounding Mark Millar’s rape comments)
• Trauma and Manga (Examples: in the work of Osamu Tezuka and Hagio Moto)
• Childhood and Trauma in Comics (Examples: Lynda Barry’s 1000 Demons, Craig Thompson’s Blankets and Habibi)
• Childhood and Trauma in Illustrated Books and Children’s Picture Books (Examples: Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There)
• The Imagetext of the Newspaper / How Trauma is Reported through Media

“Traumics: Comics Narratives of Trauma” will consider papers from graduate students, professors, independent scholars, undergraduates and other academics, and all submissions will be judged based on merit.

Submissions should be between 6,000-10,000 words, and are due Nov. 1, 2015. All proposals should be submitted to imagetext@english.ufl.edu with the subject line, RE: Traumics Forum

Please see the ImageTexT Submission Guidelines for more information on formatting, image inclusion, and the review process: http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/submissions.shtml