Comics, Creativity, and Culture: Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives, Fall 2011

In Fall 2011 the Obermann Humanities Symposium “Comics, Creativity, and Culture: Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives" will be held on the UI campus (October 6-8). This seminar leading up to the symposium will prepare graduate students for informed and fully engaged participation in the symposium and related events by offering an advanced, intensive introduction to contemporary comics (or “graphic novels”), now increasingly acknowledged as a legitimate form of artistic expression, historical narrative, and cultural analysis. Compact surveys of the formal and historical aspects of comics will allow for and lead to interdisciplinary consideration of texts by key contemporary figures including Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, James Sturm, Joe Sacco, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, and Phoebe Gloeckner, as well as notable scholarship within the growing body of “comics studies.” The Symposium will feature presentations by artists and critics examined in the seminar and thus offer students a rare opportunity to interact directly with the writers and artists of the work they have studied. An additional follow-up session will consider students’ perspectives in light of the Symposium.


