Framing the Unreal

deadline for submissions: 
April 1, 2024
full name / name of organization: 
International Comparative Literature Association Standing Research Committee on Comics Studies & Graphic Narrative.
contact email: 

We are requesting papers for an international conference organized by the Laboratorio per lo Studio letterario del fumetto at Ca’ Foscari University and the International Comparative Literature Association Standing Research Committee on Comics Studies & Graphic Narrative.

 

The conference will be held at Ca' Foscari University, Venice, ITALY, 13-15 November 2024

 

Gender in Science Fiction Comics and Graphic Novels

 

Science fiction has often been criticized as normalizing and reinforcing dominant hegemonies, encouraging depictions of sexualized violence, and/or eliding or demonizing LGBTQ+ identities. Comics and graphic narratives, on the other hand, have provided an important platform for representing various kinds of embodied identities in word and image. This panel considers how feminist and LGBTQ+ comics and characters interact and intersect with science fictions, broadly imagined. At stake in these conversations are the particular narrative and formal affordances of comics and graphic narratives and how they might constrain or expand possibilities for representation. Some of the questions that this panel looks to investigate include: What is it about science fiction (its generic and visual attributes) that preoccupies comics creators in their construction(s) of gender? What insights do contemporary graphic texts provide about gender in science fiction?

 

We are soliciting papers that address these questions against the greater context of the conference topic of “Framing the Unreal.”

 

Please send abstracts of 300 words to Alison Halsall (ahalsall@yorku.ca) and Lisa DeTora (Lisa.M.DeTora@hofstra.edu) by 1 April 2024.