theory

The Sequential Monster: Reading Comics as Monstrous

Comic books, graphic novels and webcomics generally combine words and images to create narratives. Perhaps we can see them, therefore, as monstrous: beasts that combine the elements of verbal and visual, narrative and static communication forms. Like a monster composed of pieces of other animals, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This panel will examine a social understanding of comics forms and the kinds of literacies required to accept and interpret them.

Abstracts of 300 words to lauere@sunysuffolk.edu; Deadline: September 30, 2012. Include: name, affiliation, anticipated a/v requirements.

Scholarly essays are sought for a collection on the "dark/gothic" fairy tale motif in children's and young adult literature. One of the most popular and long standing traditions in literature for youth, fairy tales have always had elements of fantastical horror, dark motifs, and other Gothic themes built into them. Cannibalism, murders, despair, rape, kidnapping, reincarnations, broken families and many other horrific elements are to be found in these stories. Countless experts insist that their inclusion was, and still is, vital to the growth and maturation of the child reader. The melding of the traditional fairy tale and Gothic literature themes help the reader not only to see the positive aspects of life, but the darker side as well.

Volume 3, Number 1, Themed Issue on Monstrous Spaces/ Spaces of Monstrosity

This issue is concentrating on spaces that are considered monstrous or are themselves capable of producing monstrosity. these spaces can be actual or authored, real or imaginary. Spaces of violence and murder, social taboo, ideological excess and human depravity from the past, present or future. Equally spaces natural or supernatural, earth found or star bound that produce, spawn or inevitably return to monstrosity in all its many human, cultural and temporal forms

The Editors welcome contributions to the journal in the form of articles, reviews, reports, art and/or visual pieces and other forms of submission on the following or related themes:

The International Academic Forum in conjunction with its global partners, including the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia, is proud to announce the Third Asian Conference on Cultural Studies, to be held from May 24-26 2013, at the Ramada Osaka, Osaka, Japan.

www.accs.iafor.org

Conference Theme: Intersecting Belongings: Cultural Conviviality and Cosmopolitan Futures

As Italian premier Mario Monti recently did, politicians are increasingly calling on citizens to make sacrifices for the future of their countries. Such public invocations of sacrifice place politicians and their constituents in a state of tension at least partly because of the difficult and often contradictory connotations of sacrifice. Sacrifice, a concept of religious provenance deeply embedded in contemporary culture, can mean to offer for destruction and to make amends, to hurt and to heal, make whole, or sacred. Such oppositions at the heart of sacrifice make it a dangerous and much-fraught concept, as well as a fruitful and powerful one in numerous spheres of culture.