Panels will take place on Saturday, February 23th, 2019
in Michigan State University’s Main Library, 2nd & 3rd Floor West
Imagining the Superhero Body
Session 1.1: 10:30 AM – 11:50 AM
Real Classroom – MSU Main Library, 3rd Floor
CHAIR: Liz Deegan
- Sydney Heifler – University of Oxford, UK and Monica Geraffo – Fashion Institute of Technology
“From Romance Comics to X-Men: The Psycho Symbolism of Fashion and Female Sexuality in Cold War Comics” - Sara Ellis – Meiji University, Japan
“Minds in the Gutter: The Persistence of Vision and the New 52” - Tiffany Babb – The New School
“Don’t Get Eaten By a Tiger: The Presentation and Safety of Young, Othered Bodies in FF”
Cultural Re-Contextualization Through Comics
Session 1.2: 10:30 AM – 11:50 AM
Beal Classroom – MSU Main Library, 3rd Floor
CHAIR: Zack Kruse
- Kate Polak – Wittenberg University
“What the Facts Fail to Address: Vertigo, Historical Fiction, and Cultural Memory” - Dan Yezbick – Wildwood College
“Ducks and Cover: Carl Barks, the Disney Ducks, and Eco-Animal Antagonism in Mid-Century Dell Comics” - Bob Beach – State University of New York-Albany
“Comics and Cannabis: The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency and the Portrayal of Marijuana Use in American Comic Books, 1940-1950” - Sydney Heifler – University of Oxford, UK
“Dangerous Love: Violence, Gender, and Race in UK Post-War Romance Comics”
Race and Representation in Comics
Session 1.3: 10:30 AM – 11:50 AM
Project Room J, W201J – MSU Main Library, 2nd Floor
CHAIR: Tamara Butler
- Brian Cremins – Harper College
“Reggie Byers, Shuriken, and the Black and White Comics Boom of the 1980s” - Christopher Lopez – Fuller Theological Semenary
“New How, Different in What Way: Race, Authenticity, and Tokenism in Marvel Comics“ - Mathieu Li-Goyette – Université de Montréal, CA
“For a Schizo-Analysis of Rays, Muscles, and Kabooms: Poetics of Superpowers in an Identity Swapping Era”
Comics as a Vision of Conflict
Session 1.4: 10:30 AM – 11:50 AM
Digital Scholarship Lab – MSU Main Library, 2nd Floor
CHAIR: Ann Larabee
- Stephen Connor – Nipissing University
“Victor Charles and Marvin the ARVN: Vietnamese American War Comic Books” - Markus Streb – Justus Liebig University Gießen, DE
“Early Representations of Concentration Camps in Golden Age Comic Books: Graphic Narratives, American Society, and the Holocaust” - Leslie Frempong – Art Institute of Chicago
“A War on Culture: Examining Cultural Imperialism in the Japinese Anime Gintama”
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Qiana Whitted
Session 2: Noon – 1:15 PM
Comics in the Diasporas
Session 3.1: 1:25 PM – 2:45 PM
Real Classroom – MSU Main Library, 3rd Floor
CHAIR: Yomira Figueroa
- Felipe Gómez Gutiérrez – Carnegie Mellon University
“Argentine Utopia and Apocalypse: Affect, Violence and Resistance in H.G. Oesterheld’s El Eternauta (The Eternonaut)” - Sheng-mei Ma – Michigan State University
“‘LONG LIVE the waste!’: Junk Food Bites Back in Jung’s Approved for Adoption” - Ilan Manouach – Aalto University
“Shapereader: Towards User Diversity in Contemporary Comics”
Afrofuturism in Contemporary Comics
Session 3.2: 1:25 – 2:45 PM
Beal Classroom – MSU Main Library, 3rd Floor
CHAIR: Tamar Boyadjian
- Walter Greason – Monmouth University
“The Wakanda Syllabus” - Omara Dyer-Johnson – University of Nottingham, UK
“Is Space the Place?: Afrofuturism in Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda” - Grace Gipson – University of California Berkley
“Misty Knight’s Technological (Dis)Ability: Combatting Fear and Posthesis” - Stanford Carpenter
“The Ever Super Fantastic Afro Oriental Past, Present, and Future in Comics”
Culture, Memory, and History in Graphic Memoir and Nonfiction
Session 3.3: 1:25 – 2:45 PM
Project Room J, W201J – MSU Main Library, 2nd Floor
CHAIR: Sheng-Mei Ma
- Nicholas Prephan – Wayne State University
“‘Traumas Pile on Traumas’: In the Shadow of No Towers and the Monsterization of 9-11” - Dawn Wing – Metropolitan State University
“Adventures of a Cartoonist-Researcher: Excavating Information to Illustrate Translators for Justice, a Nonfiction Graphic Narrative” - Ji-Hyae Park – Roosevelt University
“‘Adulting’ in Autobiographical Comics: Coming of Age in 21st Century Media” - Isabelle Martin – University of Illinois-Chicago
“Reconstructing Memory and History: Photographs in Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do”
Visual Culture and Fan Participation in Comics Production
Session 3.4: 1:25 – 2:45 PM
Digital Scholarship Lab – MSU Main Library, 2nd Floor
CHAIR: Gary Hoppenstand
- John Walsh – Indiana University, Bloomington
“‘The Comic You Create!’: Reader Contributions to Dial H for Hero” - Ebony VF Kalir – Independent Scholar
“Making Comics and Qualitative Research” - Corey Creekmur – University of Iowa
“Considering the Comic Book Cover” - Peter Cullen Bryan – Penn State University
“‘You’ll All Be Sorry!’: Gail Simone and Critical Fan Activism”
The Comic Mirror: Curiosity, Resistance, and Repurposing in Comics 1900-Present
Session 4.1: 2:55 – 4:10 PM
Real Classroom – MSU Main Library, 3rd Floor
CHAIR: David Stowe
- Maryanne Rhett – Monmouth University
“Changing the Author Changes the Narrative: Old Opie Dilldock’s Journey from Cultural Curiosity to Cultural Conformity” - Regan Schaeffer – Central Michigan University
“The Evolution of Heroic Identity in Comics” - Aditi Sen – Queen’s University, CA
“Making of a Monster: Historical Perspectives on How Hindi Comics Create Unique Villains” - Nat Godley – Alverno College
“From Sidi Ferruch to Sidi Bouzid: France and the Maghreb in Sequential Art”
Black/White Racial Mixedness in Superhero Comics
Session 4.2: 2:55 – 4:10 PM
Beal Classroom – MSU Main Library, 3rd Floor
CHAIR: Julian Chambliss
- Sika Dagbovie-Mullins – Florida Atlantic University
“Guess Who’s Coming Home: Racial Passing and Subterfuge in Spider-Man’s Comic and Cinematic Homecomings” - Eric Berlatsky – Florida Atlantic University
“Black Wally, White Wally: Incest, Miscegenation, and the Mixed-Race Superhero in The Flash Comics and Television Show” - Sam Cowling – Denison University
“McDuffie’s Deathlok and the Social Construction of Racial Identities” - Tara Betts – Chicago State University
“Broken Biologies: Danielle Cage in Brian Michael Bendis’ Jessica Jones”
Theory and the Comics Form
Session 4.3: 2:55 – 4:10 PM
Project Room J, W201J – MSU Main Library, 2nd Floor
CHAIR: Justin Wigard
- Brett Driben – Boston University
“The Expansion of the Instantaneous: Representing Time in Comics Panels” - Zach Rondinelli – Brock University
“The Question Concerning Watchmen: Alan Moore’s Answer to Martin Heidegger’s Question Concerning Technology” - Jonathan Evans – Claflin University
Currently Untitled
Superheroes and Excess
Session 4.4: 2:55 – 4:10 PM
Digital Scholarship Lab – MSU Main Library, 2nd Floor
CHAIR: Lance Conley
- Richard Reynolds – Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, UK
“The Socializing of Superpowers: Excess in a World of Scarcity” - Joan Ormerod – Manchester School of Art, “Too Many Wonder Womans”
- Jamie Brassett – Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, UK
“Legion, Fugue & Ontological Excess” - Anna Peppard – Brock University
“Excessive Embodiment and Monstrous Containment in Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four”
The Drawn Citizen: Political Resistance in Comics
Session 5.1: 4:20 – 5:35 PM
Real Classroom – MSU Main Library, 3rd Floor
CHAIR: Christine Peffer
- Katlin M. Sweeney – The Ohio State University
“Plea Deal Compounds: The Political Coding of Women of Color’s Aggression in Bitch Planet” - Alex Thompson – The Ohio State University
“The Intersection of Protesting Bodies and Comics Form in John Lewis’s March Trilogy” - Morgan Podraza –The Ohio State University
“‘Simple, Labor-Saving, and Handy’: Rube Goldberg’s Invention Cartoons and the Democratic Process”
ROUNDTABLE: What Can Book History Tell Us About Comics?
Session 5.2: 4:20 – 5:35 PM
Beal Classroom – MSU Main Library, 3rd Floor
CHAIR: Zack Kruse
- Rebecca Baumann, Head of Public Services, Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington
- Ruth-Ellen St. Onge, Associate Curator, Rare Book School, University of Virginia
- Leah S. Misemer, Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Director, Communications Center, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Jonathan R. Olson, Assistant Professor of English, Grand Canyon University
ROUNDTABLE: Historical Comics in the Digital Age: Translating Violence and Trauma Across Time and Space
Session 5.3: 4:20 – 5:35 PM
Project Room J, W201J – MSU Main Library, 2nd Floor
CHAIR: Cody Mejeur
- Matt Handelman, German Studies and Digital Humanities, Michigan State University
- Elizabeth Mittman, German Studies, Michigan State University
- Lynn Wolff, German Studies, Michigan State University
ROUNDTABLE: Hip Hop and Comics: Cultures Combining
Session 5.4: 4:20 – 5:35 PM
Seminar Room – MSU Main Library, 2nd Floor
CHAIR: Julian Chambliss
- Patrick A. Reed – Independent Scholar
- Eric Orr – Independent Scholar
- Julian Chambliss – Michigan State University
- Emry Petchauer – Michigan State University