CFP-A-Palooza!: Calls for Papers for Collections, Journals Focusing on Comics

Hi there! I just wanted to mention several journal- or edited collection projects on which I'm working that might also interest you or those who know you.

First off, did you know I'm guest-editing an edition of ImageTexT, that very prestigious journal on comics, etc., out of the University of Florida? I am, and I'm doing so with Najwa Al-tabaa, a doctoral student at UF who is formerly of UTEP (interestingly, I'm very close to being "formerly of UTEP" myself, but rest assured, all submissions will still be vetted through folks associated with strong universities, *hint hint*) and honored me with the position of second reader on her MA thesis. She's good; I'm established. What's not to love about that pairing?

At any rate, the issue we're working on is entitled "Comics and Post-Secondary Education," so we're seeking articles about teaching comics in community colleges, universities, prisons, adult literacy programs, etc. Learn more about the project and submit something by the July 2013 deadline by visiting here.

Secondly, SANEjournal:sequential art narrative in education has announced its next themed issue. The deadline for this one looms less largely, though. "The Singularity Plurality" issue asks, "How can the writing or writings of one scholar inform how we teach comics or teach with them, or how we should do those things?" For example, what does the work of Louise Rosenblatt suggest about how we should read or teach comics?Paulo Freire? Click here to read the CFP.

As well, I am co-editing a collection with Derek Parker Royal about comics' presence in the American Southwest and Borderlands. We hope the collection does for the Southwest and Border region what Costello and Whitted’s Comics and the U.S. South did for that region and Southern studies via mining, creating, and illuminating the intersections of comics scholarship and established academic writing on the Southwestern United States, the U.S-Mexico border, and their literatures, identities, and cultures.

While abstracts were due to us by January 2013, I can tell you we'll soon issue another volley to get more submissions to join the intriguing ones we've seen so far. If you think you might have an essay that would be good for Comics and the American Southwest and Borderland, click here for contact details and general information about how we're conceiving the project currently.

Finally, I'd like to inform you about "The Conversations Project: Interdisciplinary Conversations About Comics, Literacy, and Scholarship," an edited collection in which I've asked scholars and teachers in humanities disciplines to pair with someone in the social sciences/education to talk about comics scholarship and comics teaching. The official CFP asked for abstracts by January 2013, but the first set of pairs will be getting me their essays around June 20. After that set, I'll send out more invitations, so if you're interested in comics scholarship and/or comics-and-literacy, maybe consider finding an informed buddy in a field other than your own and starting what we hope will be an innovative, gap-bridging conversation in a book which plans to be full of them. Some major players in comics scholarship and the comics-and-literacy movement have already signed on. Maybe you'll do so too. To learn more about the initial call, click here.

Of course, you can talk to me directly about any of these projects by emailing jbcarter777 at gmail dot com. Perhaps we'll be working together soon! :)