Resilience is a word used to describe the ability to sustain adversity. Graphic narratives situate the debates about resilience in the realm of popular culture. Many graphic narratives depict the themes of resilience which have emerged as a result of socio-political upheaval, existential urges and institutional threats. Works such as Persepolis, Bhimayana, Fun Home and Nat Turner graphically depict the story of the immigrant experience, caste, gender and race issues based on the varied forms of worded and pictorial texts. Graphic narrative is a powerful mode of expression which very poignantly represents human experiences by virtue of its multimodality as it “intervene[s] against a culture of invisibility” (Disaster Drawn 5). Both words and images (sometimes wordless) are to be read as a single text in the graphic narratives that helps to bring out a distinct form of understanding which is primarily based on decoding the symbols and integrating the information thereon. This panel invite papers on the graphical responses to resilience of various nature including emotional and physical kind. The visual-verbal representation in graphic narratives vividly captures the idea of resilience in the face of war, corrupt political system, dysfunctional and/or unjust social institutions and individual dilemmas which prevail in the contemporary society with the help of its formal aspects and the multiple modes of narration. Some of the possible areas for the panel papers are:

Trauma and resilience in graphic narratives

Visualizing vulnerability and suffering through graphic narratives

Drawing conflicts and survival in the comics medium

The question of resilience through art

Individual stories of resilience within graphic narratives

Please send abstract proposals of 250-300 words along with a short bio-note of 100-150 words by September 30, 2022.

All abstracts must be submitted through the NeMLA CFP website at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/CFP. Search for ID 20104, "Graphic Resilience: The Visual-Verbal Narratives and Representation” or visit the direct link to the panel https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20104

General guidelines for abstracts can be found at:

http://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/callforpapers.html. 

View the conference website at https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html.

Please feel free to email any queries to asugatha@uoregon.edu or mohit.abrol@hss.iitd.ac.in