CFP: Comics Conference on Sex, Gender, and Sexuality (UF, 3/21-22)

CFP: Comics Conference on Sex, Gender, and Sexuality (UF, 3/21-22)

The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is
pleased to announce the 2008 UF Conference on Comics and Graphic
Novels: "ImageSexT: Intersections of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality,"
which will be held in Gainesville, Florida, on March 21-22, 2008.

The sixth annual conference on comics will focus on issues of
representation in the most literal sense: that of the image on the
page (screen, monitor, etc.). We are interested in papers that move
beyond facile reiterations of identity politics to explore the
complexities and complexes of bodies and desires for artists,
writers, and readers of comics. Here we are using "comics" in its
broadest sense, to include animation, manga, anime, graphic novels,
webcomics, political cartoons, and even some "fine art."
Theoretically grounded work is preferred, but we also have an
interest in archival, historical, and creative papers. The goal of
this conference is to encourage interdisciplinary discussion
incorporating diverse approaches to the comics representation of sex,
gender, and sexuality.

Confirmed guests for this year include Phoebe Gloeckner (Diary of a
Young Girl) and Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman); invited
guests include Jaime Hernandez (Love and Rockets).

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Autobiographical and authorial issues of sex and gender in comics,
including issues of veiled autobiography, writing across gender
lines, collaboration, and adaptation (Stuck Rubber Baby, Fun Home,
The Authority, Fritz the Cat)

Archival/historical work on depictions of the body, intercourse and
identity including persistence and/or revision of stereotypes
(Tijuana Bibles, Charles Atlas ads, homosexuality in early animation,
Air Pirates Funnies)

Who's drawing my body? Self- and Other-representations and culture
wars (Goth comics, Superhero(ine) physiques, Dirty Plotte)

Fans turn Pro (and vice versa): sex and gender issues at the boundary
between and in the transition from fandom to professional comics
(letters pages, undergrounds, fanzines, weblogs, fanfic, slash and
doujinshi origins)

Indeterminacy, including queer readings, secret identities, and the
act of passing in and through comics (How Loathsome, Death Note,
Black Hole, The Book of Lost Souls)

"How ethics spoiled my pleasure": including how female fans read and
enter comics, our implication in – and pleasure from –
objectification, and the comic as part of a cultural circuit of
capital and power (Girl-Wonder.org, Women in Refrigerators,
Sequential Tart)

The comic book fetish, including the materiality of the comic, the
pleasure of reading, and "slabbing"

The perversity of children's narratives (Strawberry Panic, Hikaru no
Go, Lost Girls, Diary of a Young Girl)

Politics and sex, including political allegory in comics, metaphors
of otherness, and sex and censorship (V for Vendetta, Y the Last Man,
Alias, Superfly)

Representation and its necessary problems, from signifying male- or
femaleness to figuring sex and desire, through drawings of bodies and
acts, or depicting intimacy and pleasure (Diary of A Dominatrix,
Clumsy, Playboy comics, (non-) explicit animation)

International issues, including trade and censorship, translations,
and taboos (scanlations, fansubbing, "official" translations, cross-
cultural marketing and audiences)

Abstract submissions should be approximately 250-500 words in length.
Presentations will be 15 minutes with 5 minutes of question and
answer. The deadline for abstract submissions is December 1, 2007.