by Erika Chung
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics/La Société canadienne pour l’étude de la bande dessinée 2020 conference was cancelled. In its place, a series of online symposiums were organised to bring comic scholars together throughout the 2020/2021 academic year. Participants accepted to the conference and CSSC/SCEBD members in good standing were welcomed to participate in the online symposiums. In an effort to maximise the flexibility of the online Zoom space, the symposiums did not replicate in-person panel presentations. Instead, panellists’ research was shared with spectators in advance of the scheduled symposium session and, on the day of the symposium, researchers participated in a roundtable discussion. The goal was for panelists to engage in greater dialogue with their research and each other. Panelists and spectators met on Zoom and a moderator helped guide the roundtable discussion. Moderators introduced each speaker and prepared discussion questions. Panelists were also welcome to ask one another questions. In total, the online symposium series consisted of four sessions and featured researchers from the UK, India and across Canada.
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Tags: Amar Chitra Katha, androids, Asian representation, Austria, Bitch Planet, Canada, Canadian Comics Scholarship, Captain Marvel, charity projects, colonialism, community, Condo Heartbreak Disco, CSSC/SCEBD, disability, Domino, education, Eric Kostiuk William, femininity, film, friendships, Gender, graphic novel, identity, In a Queer Time and Place, India, Indian Comics, Jack Halberstam, Marjorie Liu, Martian Manhunter, Monstress, monstrosity, nationalism, political cartoons, post-war period, racism, Sana Takeda, science fiction, sexuality, sound, stereotypes, superheroes, the abject, UK, white gaze, women’s comics
by Fransiska Louwagie and Simon Lambert
On 13 March 2020 the University of Leicester hosted an International Symposium titled “Tradition and Innovation in Franco-Belgian bande dessinée” organised in collaboration with Wallonia-Brussels International. This one-day symposium – for which the progamme can be found here – was organised with generous support from the ASMCF, the Society for French Studies and the School of Arts at the University of Leicester.
The day was opened by Simon Lambert as Academic and Cultural Liaison Officer for Wallonia-Brussels in the UK, in conjunction with Fransiska Louwagie (University of Leicester). Keynote speakers were Professor Laurence Grove from the University of Glasgow and graphic novelist Michel Kichka, who also delivered a public seminar on his work. Across three panels, the day focussed on various forms of tradition and innovation in Franco-Belgian bande dessinée: the first panel was dedicated to “Revisiting the classics”, the second panel to “Contemporary perspectives”, and the final ASMCF panel to “Reshaping Franco-Belgian bande dessinée”. The closing remarks were organised as a roundtable session on collaborative international research projects.
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Tags: Abrégé de bande dessinée franco-belge, Émile Bravo, bande dessinée, Belgium, Deuxième génération, digital comics, education, France, Franco-Belgian Comics, Gaston Lagaffe, Gender, Hergé, History, Holocaust, Ilan Manouach, Mad, MAD Magazine, memory, Michel Kichka, Pilote, racism, Spirou, The Adventures of Tintin, Tintin, Transnational Comics, UK, University of Leicester, violence
By Whitney Hunt
New Racism Ideology In the USA
Whiteness is an enduring construct of privilege and power that systematically shapes and maintains racial inequality, resulting in a hierarchal system of oppression toward people of color (Feagin & Elias 2013). Systematic racism requires generations of people reproducing racist institutions and the white racial framings that support them (Feagin 2013). According to Feagin (2013), the white racial frame is a broad concept encompassing racist practices, imagery and discourse throughout US society shaped by and for the primary benefit of individuals considered white by society. In all eras of American history, manifestations of racism contain the ideological underpinning that justifies racial inequality. Moreover, the societal grip of white racial framing underscores the gross reality that America’s racist foundations are regularly unacknowledged (Feagin 2014; Bonilla-Silva 2017).
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Tags: adaptation, Black Panther, blackness, Captain Marvel, Colorblindness, DC, fandom, film, Jim Crow laws, Marvel, New racism, origin story, Race/ethnicity, racism, superheroes, USA, White racial frame, whiteness, Women
Comic books are the art of fantasy, exaggeration and power. So it was not surprising that soon after the creation of the comic book medium in the United States in the mid 1930s an element of propaganda began to blend into the artwork.
The idea of comic book characters being utilized in propaganda was illustrated through the comic book character Superman. The creation of two Jewish teens from Cleveland, Superman fought for the essence of American culture and societal justice, starting in 1938. In a specially created two page comic story and accompanying article for Look Magazine in February 1940, Superman flew to Berlin then to Moscow to gather up their respective dictators, Hitler and Stalin, and flew them to Geneva, Switzerland and placed them on trial for crimes against humanity at the League of Nations headquarter. Given that the US was not in the war yet, this was a bold action. Hitler’s chief propagandist Josef Goebbels even responded to the article in Das Schwartze Korps where he noted the creators’ origins and how decadent American ideals were the reason why the West could never defeat the Nazi ideology.
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Tags: 9/11, Arabs, Bucky, Captain America, Chinese, Germany, How Boys and Girls can Help with the War, Human Torch, Jack Kirby, Japan, Joe Simon, Kid Patriot, Major Liberty, Mr. Liberty, Muslims, propaganda, Race/ethnicity, racism, Russia, Soviets, stereotypes, superheroes, Switzerland, the Patriot, Toro, USA, Vietnam War, War, Wonder Woman, WWI, WWII
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