Annual Conferences

Since 2006, ComFor organizes annual academic conferences on various topics within the field of comics research.

19th annual conference, October 2024:
Graphic Medicine (Groningen)

Call for Papers
Program

18th annual conference, December 2023:
Was war, ist, wird Comicforschung – für uns? (Gleichen)

Programm
Publication

17th annual conference, November 2022:
Labor and class conditions in comics (Dortmund)

Call for Papers
Program
Please note: The conference will take place online. The program has been revised accordingly.

16th annual conference, October 2021:
Coherence in Comics: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Salzburg)

Call for Papers
Program & Registration
Proceedings

15th annual conference, October 2020:
Comics and Agency – Actors, Publics, Participation (Tübingen)

Call for Papers
Program & Registration
Conference Proceedings

14th annual conference, November 2019:
Translation, Localisation, Imitation, and Adaptation:
Comparative Aspects in Comics Studies (Schwarzenbach a.d. Saale)

Call for Papers
Program

13th annual conference, September 2018:
Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics (Cologne)

Call for Papers
Exhibitions
Program & Registration
Conference Report
Conference Proceedings
part 1, part 2

12th annual conference, December 2017:
Comics and their Popularity (Bonn)

Call for Papers
Program
Conference Report

11th annual conference, November 2016:
Comics in der Schule – Schule im Comic [Comics in Schools – School in Comics] (Essen)

Call for Papers (German)
Program (German)
Conference Report (German)
Tagungsband

10th annual conference, September 2015:
History in Comics – History of Comics (Frankfurt/Main)

Call for Papers
Program
Conference Proceedings
Nr. 1, Nr. 2

9th annual conference, September 2014:
Drawing Borders, Crossing Boundaries (Berlin)

Call for Papers
Program
Conference Proceedings

8th annual conference, November 2013:
Comics and the Natural Sciences (Erlangen)

Call for Papers
Program
Conference Report (German)
Conference Proceedings

7th annual conference, September 2012:
Comics and Politics (Freiburg)

Call for Papers
Program
Conference Proceedings
Media Coverage

6th annual conference, November 2011:
Reportagecomics. Dokumentarische Comics. Comicbiographien [Documentary Comics: Journalism and Biography] (Passau)

CfP and Program
Conference Report
Conference Proceedings

5th annual conference, November 2010:
Bilder des Comics – Visualität, Sequenzialität, Medialität [Pictures of Comics: Visuality, Sequentiality, Mediality] (Gießen)

Program
Photographic Documentation
Online-Publication of the Proceedings

4th annual conference, November 2009:
Erzählen im Comic [Narration in Comics] (Köln)

Program
All Abstracts
Conference Proceedings

3rd annual conference, November 2008:
Der Comic als Gegenstand der Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften [Comics as a Subject of Cultural and Social Studies] (Koblenz)

Program
Conference Report

2nd annual conference, November 2007:
Comicforschung als interdisziplinäre Aufgabe [Comic Studies as an Interdisciplinary Task] (Koblenz)

Program

1st conference, November 2006:
Forschungsberichte zu Struktur und Geschichte der Comics in Deutschland [Research Reports on the Structure and History of Comics in Germany] (Koblenz)

Program
Conference Proceedings

Exhibition Poster and Program Flyers for ComFor 2018

Termin:
2018 07 11 12uhr - 2018 09 20
„SuperQueeroes. Unsere LGBTI*-Comic-Held_innen“

In less than two and a half months, ComFor’s Annual Conference 2018 will take place at the University of Cologne on the topic “Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics”. At the same time one can visit the exhibition “SuperQueeroes. Unsere LGBTI*-Comic-Held_innen”, which was designed in 2016 by the Schwules Museum Berlin and shown with great success. For the first time, queer comic heroes of various kinds were thematized in the German museum world. As part of the ComFor annual conference, the exhibition was brought to Cologne under the organization of Christine Gundermann and reworked for the university by students as part of a seminar.
The exhibition can be visited from 11 July to September 20 in the foyer of the Philosophikum of the University of Cologne. Vernissage is on the 11th of July from 12 o’clock, opening with a talk by and about comic artist Ralf König . Subsequently, the exhibition will be opened by Dr. Kevin Clarke, curator of the Schwules Museum Berlin.

The organizers of the conference, Véronique Sina and Nina Heindl, have now also published digital program flyers in German and English (design: Julia Eckel), which not only provide quick overviews of the topics and the schedule of the conference, but – with motifs by artist Aisha Franz – also turned out to be very appealing:

Program flyer in German
Program flyer in English

Continue to the conference’s page with information on the registration process

Conference Schedule of the ComFor-Conference 2018: “Spaces Between”

Termin:
2018 09 17 - 2018 09 19

13th Annual Conference of the German Society for Comics Studies (ComFor):

Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics

Illustration: Aisha Franz 2018

Continue to the Call for Papers
Continue to information about the Exhibition
Continue to information about Directions & Accomodation
Continue to the Flyer

Continue to the Registration

Conference Schedule:

Monday, 17. September 2018
10:30h Meeting of the German Society for Comics Studies (ComFor)
12:00h Lunch Break
13:00h Welcome & Introduction
Conference Organisers | ComFor-Chair | Vice-Rectorate for Gender Equality and Diversity of the University of Cologne
13:30h Artistic Lecture
Philip Crawford (Berlin, GER)
My Noose Around That Pretty’s Neck (abstract)
Chair: Barbara Margarethe Eggert
14:15h Panel 1: Representations of Dis/Ability
Chair: Anne Waldschmidt
Olga Tarapata (Köln, GER)
Between Crooked Lines: Disability in E.T. Russian’s Feminist Comic Books (abstract)
Natalie Veith (Frankfurt a.M., GER)
Othering Voices and the Voice of the Other: The Depiction of Joseph Merrick in From Hell (abstract)
Jonas Neldner (Köln, GER)
Noir Surrealism: The Hybrid Bodies of Charles Burns (abstract)
15:45h Coffee Break
16:15h Panel 2: Graphic Medicine: Intersections of Comics, Health and Corporeality
Chair: Christina Maria Koch
Susan Merrill Squier (Pennsylvania, USA)
The Spaces Between: Negotiating Gender and Race in Transdisciplinary Comics Collaborations (abstract)
Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff (Berlin, GER)
Telling and Showing Dis/Continuities: Comics on Dementia (abstract)
Alexandra Alberda (Poole, UK)
The Gaze, the Other and the Exhibit: Curating Graphic Medicine (abstract)
17:45h Coffee Break
18:30h Keynote 1
Tahneer Oksman (New York City, USA)
An Art of Loss (abstract)
Moderation: Véronique Sina
 20:30h Conference Dinner Haus Unkelbach (Luxemburger Str. 260 | 50937 Cologne)

 

Tuesday, 18. September 2018
9:30h Panel 3: Making Comics and Exhibiting their Physicality
Chair: Christine Gundermann
Erin La Cour (Amsterdam | Utrecht, NL)
No Longer In-Between: Towards a Social Abstraction in Comics Exhibitions (abstract)
Ann Miller (Leicester, UK)
The Nude and the Naked: from Fine Art to Comics (abstract)
Katharina Brandl (Basel, CHE) | Anne Elizabeth Moore (Detroit, USA)
Do What You Love, or: About Precarious Living and Working Conditions in the Comics Industry (abstract)
11:00h Coffee Break
11:30h Panel 4: (Trans-)Cultural Identities
Chair: Laura Schlichting
Anne Magnussen (Odense, DNK)
Mexican Comics and the Revolution (abstract)
Anna Nordenstam (Gothenburg, SWE) | Margareta Wallin Wictorin (Karlstad, SWE)
Talking Back Strategies in Swedish Feminist Comics (abstract)
Nina Mickwitz (London, UK)
Precarity and the Gendered Migrant Body in Nina Bunjevac’s Heartless (abstract)
13:00h Lunch Break
14:45h Panel 5: (De-)Constructing Race and Ethnicity
Moderation: Marie Schröer
Priscilla Layne (Chapel Hill, USA)
Weyhe’s Postcolonial Approach to the Documentary Graphic Novel (abstract)
Jonathan W. Gray (New York City, USA)
Descendants of Kings and Queens: Black Panther and Entangled African Cosmopolitanism (abstract)
Jaqueline Berndt (Stockholm, SWE)
Destabilizing Gender but not Race? Effeminate Boys, Caucasian Appearances, and Uncertain ›Gutters‹ in (Shōjo) Manga (abstract)
16:15h Coffee Break
16:45h Panel 6: Superheroes Revisited: Intersections of Gender and Genre
Chair: Stephan Packard
Jeffrey Brown (Bowling Green, USA)
Batman: Anchor for the Space Between (abstract)
Ranthild Salzer (Wien, AUT)
Objectifying the Male: Early Superhero Comics as Fantasies of Masculinity (abstract)
Olivia Hicks (Dundee, UK)
»No Place for Trespassers«: The Supercats and the British Superheroine (abstract)
18:15h Coffee Break / Snack
19:00h Keynote 2
Carolyn Cocca (New York City, USA)
Reproducing Inequality and Representing Diversity: The Politics of Gender in Superhero Comics (abstract)
Chair: Nina Heindl
Wednesday, 19. September 2018
9:00h Panel 7: Structures of Power and Difference in Superhero Comics
Chair: Lukas R.A. Wilde
Markus Engelns (Duisburg-Essen, GER)
The ›Man of Tomorrow‹ as Copy Template – Male Hegemony and its Reproduction in Superhero Comics (abstract)
Thomas P. Scholz (St. Louis, USA)
Deconstructing the Superhero Genre: BDSM, Hypersexuality and Marshal Law (abstract)
Juliane Blank (Saarbrücken, GER)
Rethinking the World of a Female Superhero. Marvel’s Jessica Jones as an Example of a Gender-Sensitive Marvel Adaptation (abstract)
10:30h Coffee Break
11:00h Panel 8: Queering Comics
Chair: Daniel Stein
Frederik Byrn Køhlert (Norwich, UK)
Queer as Style: Ariel Schrag’s High School Comic Chronicles (abstract)
Romain Becker (Lyon, F)
The Binary Comics of a Non-Binary Artist: How Vaughn Bodé’s Gender Structures his Work (abstract)
José Alaniz (Seattle, USA)
TranSiberia and Queer Comics in Russia (abstract)
12:30h Lunch Break
14:00h Panel 9: Fluide Körper [German]
Chair: Ole Frahm
Marina Rauchenbacher (Wien, AUT) | Katharina Serles (Dresden, GER)
Gerahmt und zerstückelt. Zeichenhaftigkeit und Wahrnehmung von Körpern in Comics (abstract)
Anna Beckmann (Berlin, GER)
Strategien der Ambivalenzen – Uneindeutige Geschlechteridentitäten im Comic (abstract)
Daniela Kaufmann (Graz, AUT)
Color Change & Gender Fluidity. Zur Korrelation von Farbe und Geschlecht bei George Herrimans Krazy Kat (abstract)
15:30h Coffee Break
16:00h Panel 10: Alternative Comics und Feminismus [German]
Moderation: Markus Streb
Sylvia Kesper-Biermann (Hamburg, GER)
»…denkt lieber mal nach, wie das so zu Hause bei euch läuft«. Geschlechterverhältnisse in Alternativ-Comics der 1970er Jahre (abstract)
Kalina Kupczynska (Łódź, PL)
BLUT, oder: Gender und Nationalität im polnischen Comic (abstract)
Sophie Bürgi (Basel, CHE)
»Common scents«: Geruchsregime und affektive Zwischenräume in Lynda Barrys Comic One! Hundred! Demons! (abstract)
17:30h Concluding Discussion
Chair: Nina Heindl | Véronique Sina

Social Media

twitter.com/comicforschung
#ComFor 2018

facebook.com/gesellschaft.fuer.comicforschung

Conception

Christine Gundermann (University of Cologne | Department of History)
Nina Heindl (University of Cologne | a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne)
Véronique Sina (University of Cologne | Department of Media Culture and Theatre)

Conference organisation

Nina Heindl (University of Cologne | a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne)
Véronique Sina (University of Cologne | Department of Media Culture and Theatre)

The conference organisers are supported by
Bettina Begner, Stephan Böhm, Jan Harms, Yasmin Neuhaus, Anja Pflugfelder, Michaele Pollich, Jacqueline Rehse, Lukas Respondek, Elea Thieser, Alina Valjent, Elsa Weiland, Lies Weimer, and Philin Zwirner.

Exhibition organisation

Organisation of the exhibition “Comics and Disability Studies”:
Véronique Sina (University of Cologne | Department of Media Culture and Theatre)

Organisation of the exhibition “SuperQueeroes. Unsere LGBTI*-Comic-Held_innen”:
Christine Gundermann
(University of Cologne | Department of History)

Contact:

comfortagung2018@gmail.com 

Registration:

Attendants are kindly asked to register until August 31st 2018 at comfortagung2018@gmail.com

The conference fee will be:
35 € for professors and postdocs
25 € for PhD-students and ComFor-members
15 € for students.

Please transfer the conference fee to our account (see below) no later than September 3rd 2018 (received payment!).

– closed –

The conference is being sponsored by: DFG, German Research Foundation | Finanzfonds der Universität zu Köln zur Umsetzung des gesetzlichen Gleichstellungsauftrags | | the equal rights commissioner of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cologne | the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) | MedienStiftung Kultur | a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne | Department of Media Culture and Theatre, University of Cologne .

Cooperation Partners

Cöln Comic Haus

Elbenwald GmbH

CFP COMFOR-Conference 2018: “Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics”

Termin:
2018 09 17 - 2018 09 19

Deadline: 1st of April, 2018
Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics

13th Annual Conference of the German Society for Comics Studies (ComFor), University of Cologne, 17/09/2018 – 19/09/2018

Illustration: Aisha Franz 2018

For decades, comics have been perceived as a mass phenomenon situated in popular culture, which manifests, establishes and perpetuates stereotypical (gender)  representations. Hence, the image of a particularly helpless, passive, but all the more attractive female victim is at home in the repertoire of the medium no less than the representation of a radiant, muscular, white, heterosexual hero, whose first duty consists of protecting the world and its inhabitants from catastrophe. In this sense, comics might seem alike to other forms of mass media in the age of mechanical reproduction and their tendency towards generalisations and clichés. From a historical perspective, reactions to the worldwide anti-comics campaigns of the 1950s, including self-censorship among numerous comic book publishers, also exemplarily point to heteronormative and xenophobic tendencies within mass media comics culture, which was in turn long reflected in the demographics of its readership. However, as a popular and oftentimes marginalised medium, comics never completely became one with this role of a (reactionary) stabilising force. Rather, comics are imbued with a socio-political dimension that has always encouraged comics artists to use the spaces between in a creative way,  and to question and subvert (social) norms.

Comics are both visual and sequential art: they constitute a visual medium that is defined by  the sequence of its static images as well as by the spaces between the panels. Hence, the succession of sequential images in comics is by no means seamless. Rather, the conglomeration of (blank) spaces interconnects and separates them at the same time. These ‚spaces between’ might be used or construed as a reference to a realm of the ‚unshown’, wherein notions of a final, self-contained truth  are renounced and alternative worldviews that challenge the social status quo are enhanced. At the same time, the theme of the planned conference on ‚spaces between’ refers to the hybridity and ambiguity of the art form that combines picture and text: As an ‘inter-medium’, comics constitute a transgressive form which resists common classifications and mechanisms of exclusion based on hierarchical and hegemonic structures. In this respect, comics have the potential to destabilise and blur binary oppositions such as subject/object, nature/culture, man/woman, authentic/artificial, good/bad, normal/abnormal or black/white that are usually perceived as ‘natural’ and ‘given’. In certain circumstances, the medium thus has the potential to break up rigid dichotomies, and to open up spaces for the representation of ‘shades between’ – of fractions, differences and diversity.

The 13th annual conference of the German Society for Comics Studies will examine this productive potential of comics by uncovering and analysing different forms of the ‘spaces between’ within the art form itself, but also within its production and its audience. The internationally and inderdisciplinarily assembled  talks will focus on the question how gender, identity and diversity are represented and negotiated in sequential art. The conference topic Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics will draw our attention to the nexus between the medium of comics and categories of difference and identity such as gender, dis/ability, age, and ethnicity, in order to open and deepen an interdisciplinary conversation between comics studies and intersectional identity studies within the international comics studies community. In this respect, the 13th annual conference of the German Society for Comics Studies will not only contribute to the disclosure of exclusions, power structures and (hetero-)normative allocations in comics, but will also critically analyse their socio-political and communicative forms of (re-)production.

Potential topics for contributions may include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • constructions of gender in comics
  • the interplay of gender and genre in comics
  • conceptions of identity and their (de-)construction in comics
  • intersectionality and comics
  • the (re-)production and constitution of difference and power structures in comics
  • manifestations of heteronormative structures and allocations in comics
  • mechanisms of hegemonic exclusion(s) in comics
  • queerness and comics
  • historic dimensions of identities in comics
  • diversity and normalisation processes in comics
  • race, class and ethnic stereotypes in comics
  • comics and postcolonial studies
  • body images in comics
  • representations of dis/ability in comics
  • the interrelation of comics, health and corporeality in the realm of graphic medicine
  • economies of difference: gender, identity and diversity on the (international) comics market
  • spaces between, centres and peripheries: transnationality and diversity in comics culture
Open Workshop:

Beyond the discussion of each year’s special topic, the German Society for Comics Studies aims to further co-operation and dialogue in all areas of comics research. The 13th Annual Conference in Cologne will therefore continue an open workshop format that allows researchers to present and gather feedback on on-going projects within comics studies in all stages of development, and without any thematic restrictions – not limited to the conference topic. The invitation stands for colleagues in all phases of academic careers to discuss any projects on which they are currently working.

Submissions and contact:

Please address your abstracts of roughly 300 words plus a short biography (as a word and pdf file) no later than April 1st 2018 to: comfortagung2018@gmail.com

Contributions to the conference will be accepted in English or German and should not exceed 20 minutes. The presentations in the open workshop are limited to 15 minutes.

We plan to publish selected contributions in an edited volume.

Participants are not required to be members of the German Society for Comics Studies. Contributions from non-members welcome!

Conception:

Christine Gundermann (University of Cologne, Department of History)
Nina Heindl (University of Cologne, a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne)
Véronique Sina (University of Cologne, Department of Media Culture and Theatre)

Program of the 12th Annual ComFor Conference in Bonn: “Comics and their Popularity”

Termin:
2017 12 01 - 2017 12 03

The University of Bonn warmly invites to the 12th annual research conference of the German Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) from December 1 to 3, 2017: “Comics and their Popularity”. It is organized by Joachim Trinkwitz and Rolf Lohse.

Visitors are kindly requested to register at comicforschung@uni-bonn.de. The conference fee will be 30 € for guests (ComFor-members pay a reduced fee of 20€ and students 10 €). Please transfer to:

Universitätskasse Bonn
Sparkasse KölnBonn
IBAN: DE08 3705 0198 0000 0576 95
BIC: COLSDE 33
Important notice: Please always include the follwing:
61 117 / 282 11 / PN 73125016

Short invitation:

“Comics might currently seem to show some ambivalence towards their own popularity. On the one hand, multitudes have access to these media that provide entertainment and, increasingly, information. On the other hand, it is their very popularity that has in the past given rise to popular suspicions against comics. It is no later than in the 1950s that parents and pedagogues all over the world begin to fear that comics might lead children and teenagers astray, prompting them to limit access, which has in turn constrained the formal and topical development of the art form. At the same time, rendering comics as harmless entertainment for kids attracted criticism of immaturity, excluding it from the canonical reading for self-defined members of the educated classes. In the 1970s, the art form could thus be rediscovered as a subversive mode of expression. The attempt to use the term ‘graphic novel’ as a vehicle to approach new audiences was again met with ambivalence: While the traditional fan scene, often wary of outsiders, saw its identity and large parts of its reading conventions at risk, publishers, reviewers and book sellers saw an opportunity to gain new readership and popularity. For some parts of academia, it was only then that comics became an object of cultural research. It is these dialectics of exclusions and inclusions, access and constraint, that the conference on Comics and their Popularity at Bonn University will discuss. ”

Zum vollständigen Programm

PROGRAM: 10th COMFOR-Annual Conference in Frankfurt/M.

ComFor-Jahrestagung 2015_klein

1. Frankfurt Symposium on Comics Studies:
“History in Comics – History of Comics”

Directly to the registration

As the title indicates, the contributions and discussions of the conference will focus on comics and graphic literature with a double perspective: One field of interest will consist of the historical topics and subjects, ranging from antiquity to contemporary history, that are depicted in works of sequential art from all over the world and attract the attention of a broad readership. Contributing considerably to an international archive of cultural memory, comics play an important role in academic research as both historical source material and as depictions and interpretations of historical events. This provides a fertile ground for interdisciplinary research that combines approaches from academic disciplines such as literature, art, media, and cultural studies and history in particular.
Another field of interest – closely linked to and in correspondence with the aspects mentioned above – consists of the historicisation of the phenomenon ‘comic’, its contemporary varieties and its readership(s) as well as the analysis of its international developments. Focusing on history and the historical in picture stories, it is adequate and relevant to ask about the lines of tradition of the medium and their preconditions: not least since the debates on new (or seemingly new) trends such as manga and graphic novel, seriality, media culture, the relation of comics and picture books, comics in traditional and modern media, etc. raise questions on the nature of graphic literature.

Continue reading: Program and registration

CfP: History in Comics – History of Comics

Termin:
2015 09 04 - 2015 09 06
10. Wissenschaftstagung der Gesellschaft für Comicforschung (ComFor)

10. Annual Conference of the „Gesellschaft für Comicforschung“ (ComFor)
04/09/2015 – 06/09/2015

Goethe-University Frankfurt, Campus Westend

As the title indicates, the contributions and discussions of the conference will focus on comics and graphic literature with a double perspective: One field of interest will consist of the historical topics and subjects, ranging from antiquity to contemporary history, that are depicted in works of sequential art from all over the world and attract the attention of a broad readership. Contributing considerably to an international archive of cultural memory, comics play an important role in academic research as both historical source material and as depictions and interpretations of historical events. This provides a fertile ground for interdisciplinary research that combines approaches from academic disciplines such as literature, art, media, and cultural studies and history in particular.

Another field of interest – closely linked to and in correspondence with the aspects mentioned above – consists of the historicisation of the phenomenon ‘comic’, its contemporary varieties and its readership(s) as well as the analysis of its international developments. Focusing on history and the historical in picture stories, it is adequate and relevant to ask about the lines of tradition of the medium and their preconditions: not least since the debates on new (or seemingly new) trends such as manga and graphic novel, seriality, media culture, the relation of comics and picture books, comics in traditional and modern media, etc. raise questions on the nature of graphic literature. Continue Reading

Programm der 9. ComFor-Jahrestagung in Berlin

Termin:
2014 09 25 - 2014 09 28

ComFor2014tagunsposter_gross

“Grenzen ziehen, Grenzen überschreiten”

25.-28. September 2014
an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Hörsaal 207 in der Dorotehhenstr. 26, Berlin-Mitte)

Direkt zur Anmeldung

Ob zwischen West und Ost, Ober-, Mittel- und Unterschicht, Mann und Frau, oder E- und U-Kunst, Realität und Fiktion: Ständig werden von uns Grenzen gezogen, überschritten und neu gezogen. Für Jurij M. Lotman sind dies fundamentale Akte einer jeden Kultur. Der Begriff der Grenze ist stets ambivalent, trennt und verbindet sie doch zugleich. Auch der Comic setzt und überschreitet Grenzen, inhaltlich wie formal. So verwischt er etwa prinzipiell die Unterschiede zwischen Schrift und Bild. Comics werden längst global vermarktet während sie sich mit nationalen Grenzen ebenso häufig wie mit jenen im Bereich class, race und gender beschäftigen. Und sie lassen in vielen ihrer Figuren Mensch und Tier ununterscheidbar erscheinen. Die 9. Tagung der Gesellschaft für Comicforschung möchte diese und weitere Phänomene rund um das Thema „Grenze“ näher untersuchen.

Veranstaltungsort:
Institut für Bibliotheks- und Informationswissenschaft (Hörsaal 207)
Dorotheenstr. 26
D-10117 Berlin

 

Programm mit Zeitplan:

Donnerstag, 25.09.2014

14:00-17:00 Mitgliederversammlung der Gesellschaft für Comicforschung (ComFor).
17:00-17:30 Pause
17:30-18:00 Begrüßung und Grußworte durch das Präsidium, die ComFor und die Organisator_innen.
18:00-19:30 Abendvortrag: „Crossing Boundaries of Taste in the 19th Century: Satire versus Slapstick; Pictures versus Text; and What It Might Be ‘Acceptable’ for the Working Class to Enjoy“ (Roger Sabin, UK).
19:40-20:30 Ausstellungspräsentation: „BLACK KIRBY: In Search of…The Mother Boxx  Connection“ (John Jennings, USA).
20:30-22:00 Ausstellungsbegehung und Empfang

Zum vollständigen Programm und zur Anmeldung

CfP: Grenzen ziehen, Grenzen überschreiten

ComFor 2014 – 9. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Comicforschung
25. – 28. September 2014, Berlin

Stichtag: 31. März 2014

 

Ob zwischen West und Ost, Ober, Mittel- und Unterschicht, Mann und Frau, oder E- und U-Kunst, Realität und Fiktion: Ständig werden von uns Grenzen gezogen, überschritten und neu gezogen. Für Jurij M. Lotman sind dies fundamentale Akte einer jeden Kultur. Der Begriff der Grenze ist stets ambivalent, trennt und verbindet sie doch zugleich. Auch der Comic setzt und überschreitet Grenzen, inhaltlich wie formal. So verwischt er etwa prinzipiell die Unterschiede zwischen Schrift und Bild. Comics werden längst global vermarktet während sie sich mit nationalen Grenzen ebenso häufig wie mit jenen im Bereich class, race und gender beschäftigen. Und sie lassen in vielen ihrer Figuren Mensch und Tier ununterscheidbar erscheinen. Die 9. Tagung der Gesellschaft für Comicforschung möchte diese und weitere Phänomene rund um das Thema „Grenze“ näher untersuchen. Continue reading

Tagungsbericht „Comics und Naturwissenschaften“

8. Wissenschaftstagung der ComFor „Comics und Naturwissenschaften“
Zum Programm

Tagungsbericht von Nina Mahrt, Stephan Packard und Lukas Wilde

 

 Freitag, der 15. November 2013

tagungsbericht_erlangen_01_gross Die Eröffnung und kurze thematische Einführung durch Prof. Dr. Dietrich Grünewald war eine Sammlung erster Assoziationen und Fundstücke zum Themenbereich Comics und Naturwissenschaften. Die Beispiele stammten aus den Häusern Disney, Kauka, Mosaik und der Serie Tim und Struppi und konnten zeigen, dass in einigen der bekanntesten Serien Wissenschaft als immer wieder kehrendes Thema präsent ist.

 

Das erste Panel der Tagung bildete das „Forum“. Dieses Format hat auf Tagungen der ComFor eine gewisse Tradition und lädt ForscherInnen dazu ein, noch in der Entwicklung befindliche Projekte der Comicforschung zu präsentieren und zur Diskussion zu stellen. Die Vorträge in diesem Panel waren daher nicht an den thematischen Rahmen der Tagung gebunden, bewegten sich dennoch überwiegend ebenfalls in diesem Bereich.

 

Ein Seminar der Medienwissenschaften-Bachelor der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg eröffnete den Reigen mit dem Beitrag Wenn Comics Medien erklären. Die TeilnehmerInnen hatten sich unter Anleitung von Lukas R. A. Wilde mit der theoretischen und praktischen Arbeit von Scott McCloud befasst. Sie unterzogen seinen 2008 erschienenen Informationscomic zur Erklärung des Browsers Google Chrome einer Analyse strikt nach seinen theoretischen Ausführungen in Understandig Comics. An verschiedenen Beispielen konnte ausgemacht werden, dass die Theorie des Künstlers Lücken aufweise, zu deren Schließung die Vortragenden Vorschläge machten.

 

Julia IngoldJulia Ingold stellte mit Zeichentheorie und Poetik in Craig Thompsons „Habibi“ Ergebnisse ihrer Bachelorarbeit vor, in der sie sich mit zeichentheoretischen Mitteln dem Comic Habibi von Craig Thomsen widmete. Ihre Beispiele verdeutlichten, wie in diesem Comic die Grenzen zwischen den Zeichentypen nach C. S. Peirce (Symbol, Ikon und Index) verschwimmen und sich auflösen. Auch die in der Theorie oft als gegensätzlich beschriebenen Zeichenarten Sprache und Bild sind im Comic nicht immer trennscharf zu scheiden.

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