Intellect

Please refer to the Intellect style guide before submitting your article to studiesincomics@gmail.com. Submissions for Issue 3.1 must be sent by 1 February 2012 and completed papers will be required by 1 April 2012.

Download the Call for Papers for STIC 3.1

Download the Call for Papers for STIC 3.2: From Akira to Žižek: Comics and Contemporary Cultural Theory

Call for Papers

Papers are invited for Studies in Comics, a new international and interdisciplinary academic journal that aims to describe the nature of comics, to identify the medium as a distinct art form, and to address its formal properties. With the inaugural issue we hope to launch our investigations with a selection of world-class academic articles that explore the formal properties of comics, advancing their own theory of comics or responding to an established theoretical model. We also welcome reviews of new comics, scholarship, criticism and exhibitions, as well as unpublished creative work.  

We invite submissions of articles of 4,000-8,000 words from any discipline. These should have a strong critical focus and seek to apply hitherto unexplored theoretical approaches to the medium of comics or respond to published theories about the medium’s formal properties. Possible areas include:

• Comics and visual language in the context of communications theory
• The grammar of comics
• Narrative structure
• The relationship between panel, page and the multiframe
• Composition and panel transitions
• The treatment of time and space
• Responses to published theorists such as Scott McCloud, Will Eisner, Thierry Groensteen, etc.

We also welcome reviews of new publications and exhibits and short creative work of 1-5 pages in length. Creative work should be relevant to some aspect of comics, although there are no other thematic or stylistic restrictions. Metafictional submissions that deal with the processes and theories of comics creation are encouraged.

Submissions

Submissions are welcome from both scholars and enthusiasts. Contributors are encouraged to approach comics from any discipline and to turn their attention to comics from all countries and in all languages.  So whether you’re a semiotician, philosopher, scientist, historian, enthusiast, cultural, literary or film critic, Studies in Comics welcomes you! Please send all submissions to studiesincomics@googlemail.com.

Article submissions: please send a 300-word abstract and include the word ARTICLE in the subject heading. Please indicate the intended word count of the article. All submissions will be peer-reviewed. Papers must be submitted in English.

Reviews of publications and exhibitions: please include the words REVIEW PUBLICATION or REVIEW EXHIBITION in the subject heading.

Creative submissions: please include the word CREATIVE in the subject heading.

Call for Papers 3.2: From Akira to Žižek: Comics and Contemporary Cultural Theory
Tony Venezia, Guest Editor

Papers are invited for Studies in Comics volume 3.2. This special issue seeks to provide a forum for new articulations between comics studies and contemporary cultural theory. The importance and continued relevance of post-structuralist/postmodernist thought, the Frankfurt school’s studies of mass culture, McLuhan’s media theory and Bourdieu’s critical sociology are rightly acknowledged.
Such figures dominate theoretical academic discourse on comics, as in other areas of cultural studies, often at the expense of engagement with alternative strands of critical thinking.

Rather than risking stagnation, comics studies needs to critically engage with theoretical paradigms not yet sourced. Submissions are welcome from scholars and enthusiasts that explore the conjunctions of comics and cultural theory. These could be engagements with the work of specific thinkers or emergent schools, including but not limited to: Bruno Latour and ANT – Michel Serres – Paul Virilio – eco-criticism – thing theory – N. Katherine Hayles – Teresa de Lauretis – Franco Moretti – Manuel De Landa – Manuel Castells – cognitive capitalism – transmedia narratives – Giorgio Agamben – Édouard Gissant – Jacques Rancière –
Friedrich Kittler – non-representational theory – speculative realism/materialism – Alain Badiou – Zygmunt Bauman – Rosi Braidotti – Antonio Negri – Jan van Dijk – affect theory – Lev Manovitch - Kojin Karatani – visual culture studies – Slavoj Žižek...

Articles should be 4,000-8,000 words from any discipline with a strong critical focus. Please send 300 word abstracts to studiesincomics@googlemail.com by 1st May 2012 in the first instance, also stating the intended word count of the article. Completed papers will be required by 15th August 2012. All submissions are peer reviewed and papers must be in English. Reviews of publications and exhibitions are also welcome, as are creative submissions, by the same deadlines indicated above.