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…
Comics Academe: CFPs on Bitch Planet, Allison Bechdel & Monstrous Women
A new feature for Comics Academe! This post will be updated as needed. Sometimes interesting Calls For Papers and Calls For Submissions come across my radar, and I need to share them with the incredible women I know who are in academia (or who are, like myself, academia-adjacent). CFPs are organized in order of deadlines…
Comics Academe: Teaching Ms. Marvel Part 2
This is part two of my account of teaching G. Willow Wilson’s Ms. Marvel to honor students at a large southern university. Part one can be found here.