CFP: Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives

CFP: Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives

Ken Koltun-Fromm, Haverford College ([email protected])

Assaf Gamzou, Israeli Cartoon Museum ([email protected])

Call for Papers

Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives

The last decade has produced critical and expressive studies in sacred
canonical texts and comics. Witness, for example, the artistic works from
R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis (2009) and JT Waldman’s Megillat Esther (2005), as well as scholarly publications from Karline McLain’s India’s Immortal Comic Books (2009), A. David Lewis’s edited volume Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (2010), and Samantha Baskind’s and Ranen Omer-Sherman’s editorial work for The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches (2010).

Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives is a
proposed volume for the “Critical Approaches to Comics Artists” series at
the University Press of Mississippi that builds upon, but also beyond,
Western or “major” religious traditions to develop a broader landscape of
religious graphic mediums. We encourage submissions that engage Islamic,
Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Native American, African Diaspora
traditions, or other religious communities from a variety of disciplinary
or cross-disciplinary perspectives. Such critical approaches may include
studies in religion, literature, theology, art history, culture,
anthropology, political science, or other disciplines that work with the
multi-dimensional features of graphic narratives.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Depictions of the sacred in comics.
• The place of historical exegesis and critical, religious interpretation in graphic narratives.
• Comics as a form and method of interpretation.
• The ways in which the graphic, formal features engage notions of the sacred.
• The modes by which graphic narratives represent the sacred or
• conceptions of religion.
• The ways in which religious identity and belief are represented and explored in graphic mediums.
• The multiple ways that visual culture informs religious practice.

Please send a 500-1000 word abstract, CV, and contact information to Ken
Koltun-Fromm ([email protected]) and Assaf Gamzou ([email protected]) by August 21, 2015. Haverford College will host a symposium on “Sacred Texts and Comics” on May 5th and 6th, 2016 that will include workshops for contributors to this proposed volume. Please indicate your interest in and availability to participate in the symposium (all expenses will be paid, including a small stipend).