‘Comics Crossroads’ is an emerging scholars conference that brings together a diverse group of early career researchers, artists and leading scholars working on comics, cartoons and caricature from different perspectives and different fields in the humanities. As the burgeoning field of Comics Studies risks fragmentation as scholars entrenched in one tradition are unaware of the important contributions being made in others, the conference seeks to counter such divisive trends by providing a space for receptive and productive engagement with current trends and new avenues of scholarly interaction. In line with the two keynotes, held by Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius (Birkbeck) and Gavin Parkinson (Courtauld), the conference presentations focus on intersections between caricature and gender and comics and ‘high art’, as well as on approaches towards a new ‘comics methodology’ and the significance of archives in the comics preservation.
Day 1: Friday, 7ÌýOctober
Closed workshop for invited participants only followed by aÌýkeynote lecture open to the public
17.00 – 18.00: Keynote lecture – Open to all, free admission.Ìý(Research Forum Seminar Room. Access via the back door of the Institute, in Somerset House courtyard)
Dr. Kasia Murawska Muthesius (Birkbeck): Ladylike: Caricature, Comics and Gender
Day 2: Saturday, 8ÌýOctober
Emerging Scholars Conference, free and open to all (with advance booking required). Research Forum Seminar Room. Ìý Access viaÌýmain entrance door.
09.30 – 10.00: Registration
10.00 – 11.30:ÌýPanel I: Comics and Gender
Catherine Wild (Winchester): Misty Comics and the liminal Stage of Puberty
Penelope Mendonça (Central St Martins): The Single Mother, the Sketchnote and the Comic
Fionnuala Doran (Teeside): Artist Talk: Women as Creators in the English-language Comic Industry
11.30-12.00:Ìý Coffee BreakÌý(provided in the student cafe, lower ground)
12.00 – 13.30:ÌýPanel II: Comics and the Archive
Nicola Streeten (Sussex): We Are Our Own Archives
Michael Connerty (Central St Martins): Un-archiving the other Jack B. Yeats
Kim L. Pace (UAL): Cult Fiction – Art & Comics (Can We Be Serious?)
13.30 – 14.15:ÌýLunchÌý(provided for the speakers and chairs only, in the student cafe, lower ground)
14.15 – 15.15:ÌýKeynote by Dr. Gavin Parkinson (Courtauld): Pogo, Pop and Politics: Robert Benayoun on Comics and Roy Lichtenstein
15.15 – 15.30:ÌýRefreshment Break (provided in the student cafe, lower ground)
15.30 – 17.00:ÌýPanel III: Between ‘high’ and ‘low’?
Guy Lawley (Central St Martins): Real Ben Day dots, so-called Benday dots and the comic book aesthetic: did Roy Lichtenstein really paint Ben Day dots?
Laura Nuti (Università per Stranieri di Perugia): The influence of comics in Fellini’s films
Tobias Yu-Kiener (Central Saint Martins): The mythologisation of iconic fine artists in graphic novels and comics
17.00 – 17.30:ÌýCoffee BreakÌý(provided in the student cafe, lower ground)
17.30 – 18.45:ÌýPanel IV: Towards a Comic Methodology
John Miers (UAL): Visual metaphor, narrative drawing, and embodied cognition
ÌýAlex Turton (UEA): Adapting digital text mining methods for the comics medium
ÌýPaul Fisher Davies (Sussex): The Logical Structures of Comics: Parataxis, Hypotaxis and Text Worlds
18.45:ÌýReception (in the student café, lower ground)