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:

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 31^st 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 3^rd 2018 (received payment!).

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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

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

13^th 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 13^th 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)

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