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Call For Papers: Comics and Life: Illustration, Intersections, and Insights

By John Freeman on October 30, 2023

An anthology of scholarly articles, Comics and Life: Illustration, Intersections, and Insights, is in the works, to include articles, interviews and comic strips – and the editorial team at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Roorkee, India.

The planned anthology, edited by Dr. Smita Jha, Abhilasha Gusain, and Amritha R Krishnan, will be published by a leading publishing house, who will be finalised depending on the quality of the proposals received. All contributions will undergo a peer-review process to ensure academic rigour and quality.

Here’s are the Call For Papers details….

“Higher education and research in humanities and social sciences have a rich history of addressing complex societal issues. But today, with technological advancements and globalization, academia is changing rapidly. Interdisciplinary research is the way forward, promoting innovation and preparing scholars for the complexities of our modern world. The emerging field of comics studies exemplifies this approach by exploring diverse subjects through a unique lens. This evolution in academia reflects our need to adapt and find creative solutions to the multifaceted challenges we face.

“Comics has emerged as a captivating medium for exploring the complexities of life, society, and human experiences. This anthology seeks to bring together a collection of scholarly articles that delve deep into the theme of ‘Comics and Life’, emphasising the illustration of varied facets of existence, intersections of various narratives, and the valuable insights comics offer into our world.

“The edited volume attempts to be a focal point for critical conversations about life writings that engage with new theoretical interventions in gender, memory studies, postcolonial scholarship, transitional justice, and ethics. It aims to examine graphic life writing projects in English chosen from a spectrum of historical and geographical locations.

“We invite contributions from scholars, researchers, and academics across disciplines including art history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to submit their original research articles, book reviews, original and unpublished comic strips, and interviews with graphic narrative creators that explore the multifaceted relationship between comics and life, including but not limited to the following topics:

• Social Commentary: Analysing how comics depict and critique social issues, including migration, gender, environment, and more.
• Narrative Intersectionality: Investigating how comics intersect different narratives, cultures, and identities, fostering a richer understanding of life’s complexities.
• Identity, Representation, and Diversity: Discussing the portrayal of diverse characters and voices in comics.
• Ethics and Representation: Examining how comics navigate the question of ethics when visually representing trauma, grief, disaster, and loss.
• Graphic Medicine: Patient/Caregiver narratives; Health advocacy and breaking stigma; Medical education through comics; Comics as Therapy
• Comics and Technology: Intersections between life, technology, and comics; Future of comics: Production and Distribution; Education and Research through comics
• Ethical Spectatorship: Examining the reader’s role in the autobiography practice

Submission Guidelines: Abstracts/Proposals of no more than 300 words should be submitted via email to cfpcomicsanthology@gmail.com. Please include a brief author/s biography (150 words) with your submission. All submissions should adhere to the following guidelines:
MLA 9TH edition, Times New Roman, Font Size 12, Spacing 1.5

Important Dates: Submission of abstract/proposal by: 31st January, 2024 | Notification of Acceptance: 15th March, 2024 | Full articles will be due by: 30th September, 2024

Full articles should be approximately 5,000-6000 words. (The authors of the selected abstracts will be notified with instructions to submit the full paper). Interviews and book reviews should be approximately 1500-2000 words. Comics strips should be relevant to the proposed theme.

The Editorial Team

Dr. Smita Jha is a Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee, India. She completed her PGDTE from CIEFL, Hyderabad. She has published more than 65 papers in refereed journals of literature by Routledge, SAGE, and OUP, and has six books to her credit, the recent one from Bloomsbury, India. She was shortlisted for the Nehru Fulbright Fellowship in 2013, and the Advanced Study Centre Shimla fellowship in 2011, while received the British Columbia fellowship in 2009, and the prestigious Indo-Canadian Shastri Fellowship in 2019. She has supervised over 10 Ph.D. candidates on varied topics including Indian Partition, American Literature, Dalit Literature, Forensic Science and Criminology, and Diaspora Studies. Her present areas of research include comics and graphic narratives and Medical Humanities. Dr. Jha has participated in 50+ international conferences and led academic initiatives like GIAN, MHRD in association with Texas University (2017). Her research interests include Indian Writing in English, Commonwealth Literature, Diasporic Literature, Linguistics and ELT, Contemporary literary theories, and Gender and Cultural Studies. She has organized seminars and conferences on diverse topics in association with Sahitya Akademi, Ministry of Culture, New Delhi, and other reputed organizations, showcasing her commitment to academic enrichment and interdisciplinary research.

Ms. Abhilasha Gusain is a doctoral research fellow in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee, India, with research interest in comics studies. Her research focuses on the graphical representation of the Vietnam War, particularly trauma, ethics of representation, memory, history, and violence, mainly through the reading of graphic narratives. Her research outputs are published in journals like Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics and Visual Studies. She has presented her work at various national and international conferences, including University of Cambridge. She is also the recipient of ‘The Sabin Award for Comics Scholarship’ (2022).

Ms. Amritha R Krishnan is a doctoral research scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee, India. She is currently a Fulbright scholar at Stony Brook University, New York. Her ongoing doctoral work concentrates on chronic illness narratives by women and graphic medicine. The larger fields within which her doctoral research is embedded are medical humanities, gender studies, memory studies and visual studies. Her research articles have appeared in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics.

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.