Category Archives: ComFor Updates

by Laura Oehme

Following up on Nina’s update from October, I am providing the sixth and last ComFor update on current developments in German comics studies for 2015. However, before I concentrate on the last two months of 2015 in Germany, I would like to point out that the first academic position for “Graphic Fiction and Comic Art” (connected to a PhD program) at Lancaster University also attracted much interest with the German press. The professorship marks a milestone in comics studies worldwide and, hopefully, the beginning of a trend, as the Scottish University of Dundee also uploaded a job advertisment for a lecturer in comics studies. It is still a long way to an interdisciplinary department solely dedicated to comics studies, but every little step counts. Congratulations to French graphic novelist Benoît Peeters for his appointment are in order!

Conferences, Workshops, Symposiums

Since the fall season for conferences has already passed, the last two months of 2015 brought only a few academic events focusing on comics to light. On November 24, ComFor member Daniel Stein organized a workshop with Björn Hammel titled “Mediamorphose: Die mediale Transformation der Graphic Novel TearTalesTrust” (“Mediamorphosis: The Medial Transformation of the Graphic Novel TearTalesTrust”) at the University of Siegen. A few days later, on November 27–28, an interdisciplinary student conference on “The Rise of Sequential History: Historische Comics in Theorie und Praxis” (Historical Comics in Theory and in the Field) took place at the LMU in Munich. On December 4, the University of Kiel hosted a study day on “Comic & Kunstgeschichte” (Comics & Art History). I would also like to mention the new PhD program “Die Arbeit und ihre Subjekte” (Work and its Subjects) at the University of Duisburg-Essen that explicitly touted for comics projects, for which applicants were able to get funding for three years beginning in 2016.

Publications

In November, the second issue of the very first German-language e-journal for comics studies Closure was released. It focuses on “the dark side” of comics, introduces the new category “ComicKontext,” and includes articles and reviews by numerous ComFor members. Additionally, as every December, two classical yearbooks went into print: Deutsche Comicforschung 2016, edited by Eckart Sackmann, and the Comic-Jahrbuch 2016 of ICOM, edited by Burkhard Ihme. Furthermore, Julia Abel and Christian Klein edited one of the first German-language introductions to comics and graphic novels with J.B. Metzler (Comics und Graphic Novels: Eine Einführung). It covers a wide area of disciplinary perspectives and features contributions by eight ComFor members.

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After Lukas deviated from our usual look back on the last two months of German activities regarding comics and outrageously announced diverse activities in September and October (yes, Lukas, this was cheating!) we would like to recommend the rereading of Lukas’ column and add some updates on events that have not been mentioned yet.

First of all our annual ComFor conference entitled “History in Comics – History of Comics” was held at the University of Frankfurt/M. from September 4 to 6. Although we are excited about each annual meeting, this year’s get-together was a special one: the ComFor celebrated its 10th anniversary. With a record high of 17 panels and roughly 50 talks in three days, the annual meeting in Frankfurt was one of the largest ComFor conferences so far. The four keynotes by Anne Magnussen (University of Southern Denmark, Odense), Stephan Packard (Freiburg), Dietrich Grünewald (Reiskirchen), and Christina Gundermann (Köln) at the beginning set the tone for a conference full of thought-provoking talks, controversial debates, and inspiring conversations among fellow comics scholars.

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It feels a bit like cheating for me to write this column, taking turns for our bi-monthly ComFor updates on German comics scholarship. July and August have been comparably quiet, due to what must be a holiday breeze, but a regular storm of conferences, festivals and events appears to be looming on the horizon. So consider this more of a teaser trailer for September and October – and most of all for the ComFor’s own annual conference on History in Comics – History of Comics in Frankfurt/M. from September 4–6 (more about that later).

First, as a quick follow-up to Laura Oehme’s last column, and the news about the successful funding of a research cooperation between the University of Paderborn and the University of Potsdam on the subject of Hybrid Narrativity: the research group, combining approaches from the cognitive sciences, digital humanities and narratology, remains prominent in the German spotlight. One of the founders, Alexander Dunst, recently gave a lecture on the topic of Reading Comics – Contributions of Empirical Humanities at the University of Göttingen to present some preliminary results already. There have been some discussions of the project from outside academia as well (notably within regular newspaper columns and in online discussion groups), asking for more information about the aims and methods of the project than can be found on the public website of the group. An extensive and very informative (albeit German-language) interview with Dr. Dunst was published on Christian Meiwald’s comics-newsblog Dreimalalles, while Hybrid Narrativity-member Oliver Moisich of Paderborn University composed a short (Geman-language) project introduction for the ComFor. Since it is sometimes compared to (or contrasted with) Bart Beaty, Benjamin Woo and Nick Sousanis’ What Were Comics? by the University of Calgary and Carleton University, the ComFor editorial board followed up with a short interview with Bart Beaty (in English), in which he explains more about the backgrounds of, and possible connections between, both approaches. On a further note, the Hybrid Narrativity group will be organizing a Master Class with renowned media scholar Lev Manovich in Potsdam on September 23, doubtless deepening these discussions.

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As Stephan Packard stated in his last update, the abundance of comics-related events, publications, and exhibitions has become overwhelming. As a member of the ComFor online editing board, I know first-hand how much we are struggling to keep up with the numerous announcements of upcoming events that are received almost daily. This, of course, is not only a good sign for the future of comics studies, but also hints at the fact that the public perception of comics continues to grow.

I would like to start off this month’s column by congratulating Stephan Packard for receiving the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2015. The prize is awarded each year by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The ComFor’s much-valued President received the prize on May 5th in Berlin and is, after Daniel Stein, only the second comics scholar to receive it yet.

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As German universities are about to return for their summer semesters, I find that the previous seasons of comics research in Germany hardly seem to apply any longer; an onslaught of publications, conferences, and exhibitions seems to continue throughout the year. Giving an overview of all of them no longer appears feasible, but here are some of those that kept us busy during the last two months, with apologies to anyone whose projects I might have missed. Do let me know.

We’re currently gearing up for the workshop on The Mediality and Materiality of Contemporary Comics at Tuebingen between April 24^th and 26^th. This second workshop of the AG Comicforschung, the panel for comics research, of the German Society for Media Studies (Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft) will be organised by Jan-Noël Thon and Lukas Wilde. The program boasts keynotes by Daniel Stein, Karin Kukkonen, Ian Hague, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, and AG founder Véronique Sina, and will combine these with shorter paper presentations on topics ranging from the treatment of history in comics to analyses of individual comics by Warren Ellis, John Byrne, Scott McCloud, Brian Fies, and several others.

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