ImageTexT is a peer-reviewed, open access journal dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of comics and related media. We are published by the English Department at the University of Florida with support from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Our content is available free of charge, and regular issues of ImageTexT will be published three times per year.
Boston University is hosting a conference addressing the theme of religion in comics. From the website:
From the performance of religion in comics, to religious or mythic traditions among the elements of various works, to the use of comics by religious practitioners themselves, the relationship between comics and religion is dynamic and evolving. Given the increasing seriousness with which the public has come to view comics as an art form and Americans' fraught but passionate relationship with religion, "Graven Images" will provide an opportunity for discussion of cutting- edge artistic and social issues by exploring the roles of religion in comic books and graphic novels. This event is free and open to the public.
The event is being organized by Christine Hoff Kraemer and A. David Lewis. For more information, including a schedule of speakers and events, visit the conference webpage.
The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce the 2008 UF Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels: "ImageSexT: Intersections of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality," which will be held in Gainesville, Florida, on March 21-22, 2008.
ImageSexT: Intersections of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
This year's conference will focus on issues of representation in the most literal sense: that of the image on the page (screen, monitor, etc.).Presentations will move beyond facile reiterations of identity politics to explore the complexities and complexes of bodies and desires for artists, writers, and readers of comics. Here we are using "comics" in its broadest sense, to include animation, manga, anime, graphic novels, webcomics, political cartoons, and even some "fine art."
Guests for the 2008 UF Conference on Comics include Phoebe Gloekner, Gail Simone, and Sally Cruikshank. Two dozen academic presentations will explore the boundaries of sex, gender, and sexuality.
View more information at the conference website including the program and presentation abstracts.
The SUNY Press has recently published Gema Pérez-Sánchez's Queer Transitions in Contemporary Spanish Culture as part of their series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture. From the back of the book:
Gema Pérez-Sánchez argues that the process of political and cultural transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain can be read allegorically as a shift from a dictatorship that followed a self-loathing "homosexual" model to a democracy that identified as a pluralized "queer" body. Focusing on the urban cultural phenomenon of la movida, she offers a sustained analysis of high queer culture, as represented by novels, along with an examination of low queer culture, as represented by comic books and films. Pérez-Sánchez shows that urban queer culture played a defining role in the cultural and political processes that helped to move Spain from a premodern, fascist military dictatorship to a late-capitalist, parliamentary democracy.
If you are interested in reviewing this book for ImageTexT, please contact our Book Review Editor, Tof Eklund.
The University of Alabama Press has recently published Reading Network Fiction by David Ciccoricco. From the website:
With the recession of hypertext theory's utopianism and the varied claims of liberation and democratization it fed, it is now possible to ask, with more perspective and precision, not what digital media will mean for narrative literature, literary study, and reading itself, but what it has already meant. This is the task set by Reading Network Fiction, which resists the rush of techno-culture and indulges in that age-old pleasure of making time for a good story – except that the stories it examines are all written, paradoxically, on and for the computer screen.
Learn more at the website created for the book.
If you are interested in reviewing this book for ImageTexT, please contact our Book Review Editor, Tof Eklund.
The animate! project has recently published a collection of essays: The animate! Book: Rethinking Animation. From the book description:
animate! is a groundbreaking commissioning project established by Arts Councile England and Channel 4 to support risk taking and experimental animation works for television. Exploding the traditional preconceptions of what animation is and could be, animate! exists to break down barriers and challenge expectations. The animate! book explores the vibrant discourses round the project, taking it as a jumping off point for a wide ranging exploration of the relationship between art and animation and the place of animation and its concepts in contemporary art practice.
The book also includes a DVD containing 10 films commissioned by the project. Learn more at the animate! website.
If you are interested in reviewing this book for ImageTexT, please contact our Book Review Editor, Tof Eklund.
All content is (c) ImageTexT 2004 - 2006 unless otherwise noted. All authors
and artists retain copyright unless otherwise noted.
All images are used with permission or are permissible under fair use. Please
see our legal
notice.
ImageTexT is published by the Department of English at the University of Florida.