Rob Allen
03-17-2009, 03:27 PM
Please spread this information to anyone who might be interested. If anyone is on the comics scholars list, I'd love to have this posted there.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Understanding Superheroes
An Interdisciplinary Conference at the University of Oregon
Location: The University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Dates: October 23-24, 2009
“Understanding Superheroes” is conceived as an interdisciplinary multi-media event, held in conjunction with a simultaneous exhibition of original comic art at the UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
This exhibition, “Faster Than A Speeding Bullet,” will feature over 150 pages of original superhero comic art from the 1940s to the present, with examples of key works by many major creators in the industry, including Neal Adams, Mike Allred, C C Beck, Gene Colan, Steve Ditko, Will Eisner, Bill Everett, Lou Fine, Ramona Fradon, Dave Gibbons, Don Heck, Carmine Infantino, J G Jones, Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, Mort Meskin, Frank Miller, Joe Orlando, George Perez, H G Peter, Mac Raboy, John Romita Sr., Alex Ross, Marie Severin, Bill Sienkiewicz, Matt Wagner, and Berni Wrightson.
Keynote Speakers include Danny Fingeroth (author of Superheroes On The Couch and Disguised As Clark Kent) and Charles Hatfield (author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature).
Guests Panelists include Kurt Busiek (author of numerous Superhero titles for Marvel and DC, and creator of the award-winning Astro City series), Greg Rucka (co-creator of Gotham Central, White Out, Queen & Country, and many projects for Marvel and DC), and Gail Simone (writer on Marvel’s Deadpool, DC’s Birds of Prey, co-creator of Welcome To Tranquility for Wildstorm, and current Wonder Woman scribe)!
Other guests TBA.
We invite 1-2 page proposals for 20-30 minute conference papers considering the implications of superhero fantasies for our understanding of such diverse topics as gender identity, queerness, theological yearning, and nationalist politics. We also welcome appreciative discussions of superhero comics as significant aesthetic achievements — particularly insofar as those discussions contribute to the ongoing project within contemporary Comics Studies, to map the unique conventions of the comic art form. Above all, we are interested in sophisticated, lucidly written analyses that utilize the conceptual tools and hermeneutic lenses of contemporary literary and cultural theory.
It is our hope that this conference will help all participants, student and professional, skeptic and fan, to understand the extraordinary imaginative appeal of the costumed adventurer — an appeal that overlaps significant distinctions of age, gender, nation, and culture, and which no amount of silliness or cynicism seems quite able to dispel.
Please address queries and submit proposals via email to Ben Saunders, Associate Professor, Department of English by Monday, June 15th, 2009. (Email address: ben@uoregon.edu)
--
Here's more about the art exhibition, from the blog of Steve Duin, co-author of Comics: Between the Panels:
--
Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero
When Ben Saunders was 6 years old, and growing up in Wales, his mother and grandmother had an extended argument about his obsession with comic books. His grandmother argued, "Reading is reading," convinced that what the child found in those word balloons would secure his love of books. His mother wasn't so sure. The argument continued until the day of a neighborhood magic show, when the magician asked if anyone knew what "levitation" meant.
Ben raised his hand. "It means to raise objects with the power of the mind," he said.
All the other parents in the room turned curiously toward Ben's mother, who shrugged, mystified. At which point, Ben said, "Dr. Strange has a cloak of levitation."
From that day forward, Saunders assures us, "Comics were approved of in my house."
Come September, they'll be featured guests at the University of Oregon: Saunders, now an English professor at the university, will serve as curator for "Faster Than A Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero" at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
The exhibition of comic art -- which will run through January 2010 -- has been designed with several goals in mind, notes Jill Hartz, the museum's executive director. It aims to showcase the art, and highlight the accomplishment, of such comic artists as Neal Adams, Alex Schomburg, Steve Ditko, Ramona Fradon, Frank Miller and Michael Allred. And the exhibition will also examine the "visual and cultural evolution of the Superhero" since Superman first appeared in Action #1 in 1938.
The original art on display at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will include Frank Miller pages from The Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil #158; two Dave Gibbons' pages from Watchmen; an entire Golden Age story by Bob Fujitani; a Neal Adams' Batman page; Captain Marvel pages by C.C. Beck and Kurt Schaffenberger; and art by Lou Fine, Mort Meskin and the legendary Jack Kirby.
When Saunders wasn't all wrapped up in Dr. Strange's cloak in the '70s, he was reading the black-and-white British reprints of Marvel's classic Silver Age comics, including the Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil. By the time he was 8 years old, he said, he could easily identify the panels of Jack Kirby, Gene Colan and John Romita, and his admiration for their work in sequential art has never faded.
"I want to make this a celebration of the artists, who were always laboring in obscurity behind characters who are always more famous than their creators," Saunders said.
Saunders was inspired to assemble this exhibition by the 2006 Masters of American Comics show. As impressed as he was by the collection, he was alarmed that artists like Art Spiegelman, R.Crumb and Kirby were crammed into the same show.
"That denigrates the art by suggesting those artists do the same thing," said Saunders, comparing it to a cinematic retrospective on Steven Spielberg, Sam Peckinpah and John Waters.
Saunders is focusing on the art of the superhero, and he has scoured the country rounding up pieces of original art from an industry that routinely destroyed most of its seminal pages. "I had no conception of how much art I'd be able to find," he said. "When you're looking for superhero art, it's really about private collections." Fortunately for the exhibition, many of those collectors jumped at the chance to show off their treasures in a venue where the quality and rarity of the art is appreciated.
Saunders -- who teaches early modern British literature at Oregon -- also hopes the exhibition will serve as the foundation for a program in comic studies at the university.
"Talking about comic studies is a bit like talking about film studies 40 years ago," Saunders said. "As absurd as it seems now, there was a time when you mentioned film or cinematic studies and people would look at you as if that was an absurd notion.
"Comics have been historically denigrated because they were considered neither fish nor fowl, neither literature or art." Only recently, Saunders said, have scholars turned a critical eye to this unique combination of text and art.
"People are discovering," Saunders said, "what my grandmother knew 30 years ago."
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Schnitzer Museum will publish an exhibition catalog that will feature essays by Michael T. Gilbert, Charles Hatfield, Diana Schutz and Rebecca Wanzo and an introduction by Saunders.
"Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero" runs at the JSMA from Sept. 26, 2009 through Jan. 23, 2010.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Understanding Superheroes
An Interdisciplinary Conference at the University of Oregon
Location: The University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Dates: October 23-24, 2009
“Understanding Superheroes” is conceived as an interdisciplinary multi-media event, held in conjunction with a simultaneous exhibition of original comic art at the UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
This exhibition, “Faster Than A Speeding Bullet,” will feature over 150 pages of original superhero comic art from the 1940s to the present, with examples of key works by many major creators in the industry, including Neal Adams, Mike Allred, C C Beck, Gene Colan, Steve Ditko, Will Eisner, Bill Everett, Lou Fine, Ramona Fradon, Dave Gibbons, Don Heck, Carmine Infantino, J G Jones, Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, Mort Meskin, Frank Miller, Joe Orlando, George Perez, H G Peter, Mac Raboy, John Romita Sr., Alex Ross, Marie Severin, Bill Sienkiewicz, Matt Wagner, and Berni Wrightson.
Keynote Speakers include Danny Fingeroth (author of Superheroes On The Couch and Disguised As Clark Kent) and Charles Hatfield (author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature).
Guests Panelists include Kurt Busiek (author of numerous Superhero titles for Marvel and DC, and creator of the award-winning Astro City series), Greg Rucka (co-creator of Gotham Central, White Out, Queen & Country, and many projects for Marvel and DC), and Gail Simone (writer on Marvel’s Deadpool, DC’s Birds of Prey, co-creator of Welcome To Tranquility for Wildstorm, and current Wonder Woman scribe)!
Other guests TBA.
We invite 1-2 page proposals for 20-30 minute conference papers considering the implications of superhero fantasies for our understanding of such diverse topics as gender identity, queerness, theological yearning, and nationalist politics. We also welcome appreciative discussions of superhero comics as significant aesthetic achievements — particularly insofar as those discussions contribute to the ongoing project within contemporary Comics Studies, to map the unique conventions of the comic art form. Above all, we are interested in sophisticated, lucidly written analyses that utilize the conceptual tools and hermeneutic lenses of contemporary literary and cultural theory.
It is our hope that this conference will help all participants, student and professional, skeptic and fan, to understand the extraordinary imaginative appeal of the costumed adventurer — an appeal that overlaps significant distinctions of age, gender, nation, and culture, and which no amount of silliness or cynicism seems quite able to dispel.
Please address queries and submit proposals via email to Ben Saunders, Associate Professor, Department of English by Monday, June 15th, 2009. (Email address: ben@uoregon.edu)
--
Here's more about the art exhibition, from the blog of Steve Duin, co-author of Comics: Between the Panels:
--
Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero
When Ben Saunders was 6 years old, and growing up in Wales, his mother and grandmother had an extended argument about his obsession with comic books. His grandmother argued, "Reading is reading," convinced that what the child found in those word balloons would secure his love of books. His mother wasn't so sure. The argument continued until the day of a neighborhood magic show, when the magician asked if anyone knew what "levitation" meant.
Ben raised his hand. "It means to raise objects with the power of the mind," he said.
All the other parents in the room turned curiously toward Ben's mother, who shrugged, mystified. At which point, Ben said, "Dr. Strange has a cloak of levitation."
From that day forward, Saunders assures us, "Comics were approved of in my house."
Come September, they'll be featured guests at the University of Oregon: Saunders, now an English professor at the university, will serve as curator for "Faster Than A Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero" at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
The exhibition of comic art -- which will run through January 2010 -- has been designed with several goals in mind, notes Jill Hartz, the museum's executive director. It aims to showcase the art, and highlight the accomplishment, of such comic artists as Neal Adams, Alex Schomburg, Steve Ditko, Ramona Fradon, Frank Miller and Michael Allred. And the exhibition will also examine the "visual and cultural evolution of the Superhero" since Superman first appeared in Action #1 in 1938.
The original art on display at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will include Frank Miller pages from The Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil #158; two Dave Gibbons' pages from Watchmen; an entire Golden Age story by Bob Fujitani; a Neal Adams' Batman page; Captain Marvel pages by C.C. Beck and Kurt Schaffenberger; and art by Lou Fine, Mort Meskin and the legendary Jack Kirby.
When Saunders wasn't all wrapped up in Dr. Strange's cloak in the '70s, he was reading the black-and-white British reprints of Marvel's classic Silver Age comics, including the Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil. By the time he was 8 years old, he said, he could easily identify the panels of Jack Kirby, Gene Colan and John Romita, and his admiration for their work in sequential art has never faded.
"I want to make this a celebration of the artists, who were always laboring in obscurity behind characters who are always more famous than their creators," Saunders said.
Saunders was inspired to assemble this exhibition by the 2006 Masters of American Comics show. As impressed as he was by the collection, he was alarmed that artists like Art Spiegelman, R.Crumb and Kirby were crammed into the same show.
"That denigrates the art by suggesting those artists do the same thing," said Saunders, comparing it to a cinematic retrospective on Steven Spielberg, Sam Peckinpah and John Waters.
Saunders is focusing on the art of the superhero, and he has scoured the country rounding up pieces of original art from an industry that routinely destroyed most of its seminal pages. "I had no conception of how much art I'd be able to find," he said. "When you're looking for superhero art, it's really about private collections." Fortunately for the exhibition, many of those collectors jumped at the chance to show off their treasures in a venue where the quality and rarity of the art is appreciated.
Saunders -- who teaches early modern British literature at Oregon -- also hopes the exhibition will serve as the foundation for a program in comic studies at the university.
"Talking about comic studies is a bit like talking about film studies 40 years ago," Saunders said. "As absurd as it seems now, there was a time when you mentioned film or cinematic studies and people would look at you as if that was an absurd notion.
"Comics have been historically denigrated because they were considered neither fish nor fowl, neither literature or art." Only recently, Saunders said, have scholars turned a critical eye to this unique combination of text and art.
"People are discovering," Saunders said, "what my grandmother knew 30 years ago."
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Schnitzer Museum will publish an exhibition catalog that will feature essays by Michael T. Gilbert, Charles Hatfield, Diana Schutz and Rebecca Wanzo and an introduction by Saunders.
"Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero" runs at the JSMA from Sept. 26, 2009 through Jan. 23, 2010.