Hello Sports Fans! As I’m writing this post, I’ve just returned to New York from San Diego Comic Con. I had tons of fun, and gave a little poster presentation at the Comics Art Conference that the wonderful Kathleen McClancy runs. My talk this year was titled “Monstrous Disruptions: Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona as Girl and…
Academic Conference Asks: What Makes Women Monstrous?
Women are often called monsters. Even before the internet made trolling a favorite misogynist past time, women’s bodies, functions, and perceptions have been fair game for name calling. I joined a wonderful group of scholars to discuss what after all is so “monstrous” about women at the Monstrous Women Conference this last May in at…
Review: Lessons from The Woman Fantastic in Contemporary American Media Culture
With an interdisciplinary approach to the portrayal of the “woman fantastic” in contemporary American media, this collection examines her appearance across comics, books, and television.
Superwomen, The Eisners, & Leia Organa’s PhD: A Conversation with Carolyn Cocca
Editor’s Note: One of my goals for Comics Academe is to promote the work of women working as academics and scholars in the field of Comics Studies. I reached out to Carolyn Cocca about her Eisner Award-winning book Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation, and she generously agreed to an email interview even while in the…
Comics Academe: Levi-Strauss and Loki
Happy Summer, Sports Fans! My first leg of grad school is over! More importantly, final papers have been turned in, and a degree is in my hand! Fun Fact #1: One of my term papers was about reading American superhero comics as myth defined by Claude Levi-Strauss. Fun Fact #2: That’s our subject today. The…
“Real” Wonder Women? The United Nations, Feminism, and the Media
The rift between commercialism and feminism emerged in the debate over the appointment of Wonder Woman as Honorary Ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls. Last October, the UN announced that Wonder Woman would become the organization’s Honorary Ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls. The empowerment of femininity, both physical and otherwise, is…
Comics Academe: Christine Hoff Kraemer on Graven Images
Rather than looking inward, I decided that for this Comics Academe, I’d like to talk to someone else in the field of comics. I keep saying that it’s important for scholars in “new” fields like comics to learn from each other and not lose collective knowledge, so I thought I would do as I say!…
Interview: Sequentials, a New “Comics” Journal
As part of Comics Academe, one of the things I want to do is to promote what’s happening in academia and comics studies–especially when what’s happening is something that is innovative, or challenges what academic “scholarship” can be. When I first heard about Sequentials, a new comics “journal” being put out by the incredible English…
Comics Academe: Hellos and Hildebrand
Editors Note: I am pleased to introduce the first article by a new Comics Academe contributor, Tiffany Babb, who will be sharing with us the view from inside academia, and specifically, the how she tackles the common academic dilemma of how to study comics when your institutional program does not have a comics studies program. Since…
Labors of Love: A Review of Manga in America
Manga in America: Transnational Book Publishing and the Domestication of Japanese Comics Casey Brienza Bloomsbury January 2016
Comics Academe Roundtable: Teaching Bitch Planet
Since the publication of the first issue of Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro in December of 2014, many people, inside and outside of academia, have pointed to the comic, the related backmatter and essays, and even the community that has formed around it–as embodied by the many tattoos of the…
Whaleish Work in the Disciplines: Comics and Religion Swimming Around
The last time you heard from me—and it’s been a while—I was urging academics who love comics to find their peers and work with them. I took my own advice! I was delighted to be a part of the Comics and Sacred Texts Symposium at Haverford College. It was wonderful to collaborate with scholars that…