TCJ Interviews Walter Biggins, Departing Comics Guru for UP Mississippi

Here's a great interview from a month or so ago that features a guy who really know where comics scholarship has been, where it is going, and where it ought to go. Must-read stuff for anyone trying to get a grasp on comics and academia. I can't recommend this strongly enough.

First Ph.D. Program in Manga Studies coming Soon

Kyoto Seika University (Japan) expects the program to be ready by 2012.

Comics Programs Coming to Dundee U and Moscow U of Industry and Finance

DU is in Scotland and MUI&F is in Russia. Perhaps it's time for me to consider an international job market!

Get Your Graphic Novel Degree at Napier University

"Edinburgh’s Napier University will become the first university in Britain to include comic books and graphic novels on a Masters level Creative Writing course," reports Emma Towers of The Journal.

Dundee University has also added a comics course to their English degree, according to the story.

So, comics studies programs are building steam overseas. Maybe information like this can help those of us who want to see CSP's here in the states as well. I just had a student e-mail asking about comics-related coursework at UTEP and had to tell him that we were working on it but that it may or may not ever happen. I recently read a book on academic life that quoted a Cornell professor as saying the academy's mantra is "never be the first to do anything." That's probably going hold true for folks like myself in the states who would like to see CSP's, but I'm happy to let our European brothers and sisters take the lead, because another line of old school thinking is "If Europe is doing it, we should too." So, we may see some "trickle down" effect from this. :)

Charles Hatfield on the State of Comics Studies

My favorite part? Where he says we spend too much time reinventing the wheel. Amen to that!