The Forum for Intermedial Studies is pleased to announce an international conference to be held at Växjö University, Sweden, 16–18 April, 2009:
Academic Perspectives on Comics, Manga & Graphic Novels as Intercultural & Intermedial Phenomena
The aim of the conference is to promote research about comics, manga, and graphic novels at an academic level and to create a European network of researchers in the field. Another goal is to organize a European periodic publication on sequential art.
Conference focus
The conference will focus on sequential art as an intermedial phenomenon, combining and integrating pictures and written texts into narratives. Pictures can tell stories in themselves, but most often sequential art consists of both media, which together form narratives. Sequential art is a visual medium but its visual signs are iconic as well as indexical and symbolic. Questions that can be asked are: Which form of representation and which level of abstraction are chosen, and what are the interpretative consequences? Which are the most important codes and conventions in the process of signification? How is time constructed and rendered, for instance when it comes to time passing, characters developing, and people aging?
A crucial issue of the conference is how the images of sequential art interact, with each other and with the text. The functions of the pictures and the written words differ widely. Sometimes the pictures simply illustrate the verbal narrative, sometimes the words are subordinate, and sometimes the pictures and the words together form the narrative in an integrated and cross-referential way. The conventional verbal signs are integrated in the pictorial surface in shifting ways: they may be put in speech balloons or rendered freely in the iconic field of the picture; they may be given a neutral form or iconic significance, for instance for sound effects.
These intermedial concerns may be related to intercultural issues. Comics, manga, and graphic novels are shaped by different cultural codes and shifting visual and narrative conventions. Combinations and integrations of written words and pictures are not identically formed in different cultures, but similarities do exist. Conventions are sometimes transferred from one culture to another, for example now that European and American comics are influenced by Japanese manga and sequential art from other Asian cultures.
Other issues of interest concern the recent development of the graphic novel. In what ways does this type of sequential art differ from comics and Manga and how can intermedial, intercultural and narrative perspectives help us define, describe and interpret the graphic novel and other genres of sequential art?
Keynote speakers
Paul Gravett, United Kingdom
Thierry Groensteen, France
Helena Magnusson, Sweden
The time slot for paper presentation is limited to 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion. The official language of the conference is English.
Please send your abstract of approximately 300 words as an attachment to comicsconference.hum@vxu.se. Submission is due by 11 January 2009. You will then be contacted by the committee no later than 1 February. Please let us know also if you want to be registered as a participant without presenting a paper. The conference fee will be SEK 1800, including three lunches, coffee and fruit twice a day, two dinners and various arrangements.
Registration opens 2 Februari 2009
For further information, please contact
Margareta Wallin Wictorin, margareta.wallin-wictorin@vxu.se
For administrative questions, please contact
Cecilia Johansson, cecilia.johansson@vxu.se
The conference committee
Anette Almgren-White
Jørgen Bruhn
Lars Elleström
Fredrik Strömberg
Margareta Wallin-Wictorin.
Conference secretary
Cecilia Johansson
In cooperation with: Seriefrämjandet
The conference is sponsored by: Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.