CFP: Chris Ware (3/15/07; MLA, 12/27/07-12/30/07)

Call for papers for a proposed special session
MLA Annual Meeting, Chicago, 2007

Papers for this proposed special session will consider the work of
Chicago-based contemporary graphic novelist/comic book artist/cartoonist
Chris Ware, author of _Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth_ (2000,
winner of the 2001 Guardian First Book Award), _Quimby the Mouse_ (2003),
and _The Acme Novelty Library_ (2005). Among the questions that proposals
could address are:

-- What is Ware's relationship to the literary canon (both in terms of
graphic and conventional literature) and how does he re-imagine our
relationship to the idea of literariness?

-- How does Ware's work intersect with questions of advertising culture,
media, and emerging genres?

-- In what ways are questions of narrative and temporality engaged and
complicated in Ware's texts?

-- How does Ware's work conceive of the interplay of text and image, both on
the page and in the processes of production and distribution?

-- What is the nature of Ware's reception history in the academy and within
fan culture, and what connections or disjunctions have emerged between the
two?

Papers from a diversity of disciplinary orientations and methodological
approaches are especially encouraged.

Individual presentation time is limited to twenty minutes. Please submit
500-word abstracts in Word format or within the body of an email to
dave.m.ball_at_gmail.com

The deadline for proposals is March 15, 2007.

NB: Special sessions at the MLA conference are accepted on a competitive
basis. It is a general conference rule that no one presenter may give more
than two papers at the MLA conference. All panelists are required to become
members of the MLA in advance of the conference.

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Received on Fri Feb 16 2007 - 20:53:43 EST