SANE Journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education Now on Facebook

The peer-reviewed, open-access, internationally-boarded, online journal on comics and education/literacy I founded in 2010 with absolutely no financial support from UTEP, my home institution at the time,  is now under new management and has a new host happily providing appropriate assistance.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln will go live with the journal shortly, taking over from the originating  hosting organization, to which I'm eternally grateful, Scholarly Exchange (University of Pittsburgh; previously Harvard), and adding to the more than 50,000 downloads the journals' texts have experienced.

While the new hosting pages might not have gone live yet, Dr. Richard Graham, the new managing editor, has created a Facebook page for the journal, and I encourage you follow it. Great stuff is on the way, and previous great stuff will be archived once the new URL is ready for prime time.

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! :)

SANEjournal issue 1:2 Now Available!!!

"Teaching the Works of Alan Moore," the second edition of volume 1 of SANEjournal:sequential art narrative in education, just published!

The issue features thoughts and ideas on teaching Moore Classics like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, but it also explores Promethea, Lost Girls, and other texts from Moore's amazing opus.

Three articles, three rationales, and one review make up the table of contents, which features scholars from Northwestern University, The University of New Mexico, and even a practicing high school teacher who uses Watchmen with his upperclassmen.

Click here to visit the journal, and here's to happy reading and fun learning! Warning, you might get tachyons in your eyes or find yourself in a flux resulting from rifts in the space-time dimension!

It's Coming......

*SANE journal* Publishes First Issue!

The "Comics in the Contact Zone" issue is now live! Click the title of this post to visit, and enjoy!

Reminder: _SANE journal_ Has first 3 Calls For Papers Posted

CFP: The first three issues of SANE journal: sequential art narrative in education (ISSN 2153-2613)

SANE journal is now seeking submissions for works of research, practitioner-based articles, reviews, and rationales regarding its first three themed issues.

Information about this new peer-reviewed, open access interdisciplinary journal covering all things comics-and-education-related, from pre-k to doctorate, can be obtained by visiting http://www.sanejournal.net/.

For more information, e-mail James Bucky Carter: jbcarter2 at utep dot edu.


V1.1 (late 2010 release or per article as considered ready by review board): “Comics in the Contact Zone.”

Mary Louise Pratt defines the contact zone as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in the contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today” and where those involved in the educational experience may “reconsider the models of community that many of us rely on in teaching and theorizing and that are under challenge today.” Texts are social spaces, of course, and the comic book may be the best indicator of this fact. How do you see comics as meeting, clashing, and grappling with social issues in your classrooms when you teach them? How do comics illustrate contact zone precepts such as speech acts, transculturation, unsolicited oppositional discourse, autoethnography, and safe houses? How does the integration of comics themselves set up contact zones in the classroom? Which texts do you teach to get at notions associated with contact zone pedagogy? How does teaching a comics course set up a contact zone with professional colleagues, departments, university officials, etc? Articles should make explicit mention to contact zone theory and its component concepts. Deadline July 2010.


V1.2 (planned 2011 release or per article as considered ready by the review board): “Teaching the Works of Alan Moore.”

Alan Moore may be the most influential and controversial comics writer of the 20th and 21st centuries. How do you teach his complex, multilayered works in your high schools classrooms, your college courses, etc? What are the challenges associated with teaching his texts or specific texts and how do you and your students address them? Can they be addressed? How does his output “fit” with notions of literature, literary, canon, etc. as you teach them in your courses? Articles may cover several of Moore’s texts or focus specifically on one. Deadline October 2010.

V2.1 (planned late 2011 release or per article as considered by the review board): "Why Teachers Should Care About Graphic Novels: Teaching IRA’s Emphasis on 'Visualizing' and 'Visually Representing'"

Featuring guest editing by Katie Monnin of Teaching Graphic Novels: Practical Strategies for the Secondary ELA Classroom (Maupin House, 2010), this issue's call can be found here. Deadline January 15, 2011. While Katie has addressed her call to a specific set of scholars in the first part of her call, it later reads such that anyone meeting the criteria she sets forth can and should feel free to submit using the stated methods.

_SANE journal_ Earns ISSN, Issues First Call for Papers

Wow, online stuff sure does move quickly. I just received the official ISSN number for the journal from the Library of Congress; three prominent scholars have agreed to be members of the editorial advisory and review board (more invitations forthcoming); and that means we can go ahead and get the ball rolling. Here's hoping the momentum keeps up.

Please feel free to post/copy the following Call for Papers to any blog or individual you feel would be interested in it or might help get out the word.

CFP: First and Second issues of SANE journal: sequential art narrative in education
(ISSN 2153-2613)

SANE journal is now seeking submissions for works of research, practitioner-based articles, reviews, and rationales regarding its first two themed issues. Information about this new peer-reviewed, open access interdisciplinary journal covering all things comics-and-education-related, from pre-k to doctorate, can be obtained by visiting http://www.sanejournal.net/. For more information, e-mail James Bucky Carter: jbcarter2 at utep dot edu.

V1.1 (late 2010 release or per article as considered ready by review board): “Comics in the Contact Zone.”

Mary Louise Pratt defines the contact zone as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in the contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today” and where those involved in the educational experience may “reconsider the models of community that many of us rely on in teaching and theorizing and that are under challenge today.” Texts are social spaces, of course, and the comic book may be the best indicator of this fact. How do you see comics as meeting, clashing, and grappling with social issues in your classrooms when you teach them? How do comics illustrate contact zone precepts such as speech acts, transculturation, unsolicited oppositional discourse, autoethnography, and safe houses? How does the integration of comics themselves set up contact zones in the classroom? Which texts do you teach to get at notions associated with contact zone pedagogy? How does teaching a comics course set up a contact zone with professional colleagues, departments, university officials, etc? Articles should make explicit mention to contact zone theory and its component concepts. Deadline July 2010.

V1.2 (planned 2011 released or per article as considered ready by the review board): “Teaching the Works of Alan Moore.”

Alan Moore may be the most influential and controversial comics writer of the 20th and 21st centuries. How do you teach his complex, multilayered works in your high schools classrooms, your college courses, etc? What are the challenges associated with teaching his texts or specific texts and how do you and your students address them? Can they be addressed? How does his output “fit” with notions of literature, literary, canon, etc. as you teach them in your courses? Articles may cover several of Moore’s texts or focus specifically on one. Deadline October 2010.

_SANE journal_ Moving Closer to Reality!

I have a hosting agency, a domain name, and some general information about the scopes and aims of the journal now available to the general public. For a sneak peak of the journal as I develop it piece by peice, visit http://www.sanejournal.net.

Next up, getting the editorial review boards together and sending out the first CFP's. This is going to be an organic process, but I think it will be a successful one.

SANE journal Update

I mentioned a month or so ago that I'm working on starting an academic journal focusing exclusively on comics and education. Here's an update on my progress:

I've been talking with a high-end online academic publisher but recently discovered a much more affordable entry-level online academic publisher. I've also sent e-mails to several granting agencies and to a couple of university presses but still need to hear back. I'm also scheduling a meeting with my department chair soon to discuss the idea of the journal being sponsored by UTEP's English department. I don't necessarily need the department's sponsorship to get the journal started, but it could be a very nice thing for me and my institution, especially as UTEP moves towards what it is calling "tier one" status. I've been putting together lists of editorial board members and reviewers, making sure I have representatives strong in education research, practitioner work, and the various humanities. I am putting off actually contacting anyone on these lists yet, but that could happen as early as this week. I've got ideas for the first dozen or so issues too. I'm trying to decide if it is poor form to do a call for editorial/review board members and a call for papers for the first two issues within a few hours of one another (anybody?).

My goal here is to gather the best and most appropriate folks to be part of the editorial/review boards, meaning folks who have already proven themselves with publications about comics-and-literacy, (and I know many of these folks, if not most of them) but I have such a long list of folks whom I know who would love to submit work to such a journal and/or review articles for it, that I really think this could be a great opportunity for many, many people.

I'll keep you informed as more develops!

Announcing High-Level Plans: SANE journal

Because I am beginning to talk to corporate and other organizational entities about it, and it is always good to have a record of these things, I find it as necessary as it is exciting to inform you that I am currently trying to create an on-line, open-access, peer-reviewed journal that focuses specifically on issues related to sequential art and education. So far, I've been talking with High Wire Press, out of Stanford University, to make this dream a reality.

Pulling from the "fiestiness" behind the naming of this blog (EN/SANE world: "some people might say it is crazy to use comics in the classroom. I'm here to tell you it is quite sane!:), I'm calling it SANE journal: Sequential Art Narratives in Education. My hope is that the journal will publish twice a year and be available to anyone with Internet access, free-of-charge.

The journal would accept research-based articles, practitioner-based articles, reviews of book and articles associated with comics-and-literacy, reviews by way of rationales for teaching graphic novels, and would also list outside resources.

As I've noticed a trend of "appropriation" and redistribution of voices in the growing field of comics-and-education studies, manuscripts will not be stripped of author's names in review. If a writer is an established presence in the field who seeks to move the argument in one direction or another, the editorial/review teams wants to know the article came from someone who has already proven him/herself an influential voice. No more of this having your arguments blocked by reviewers who ask you to give hints at your identity while also working under a journal that requires all author-identification be stripped away. No more noticing authors with established reputations in other fields publishing articles that reinvent the wheel while possibly using their sudden interest in comics along with their name recognition to stifle what might be your more informed thoughts on the subject. No more worrying that a journal might not even be amenable to work on comics and education as trends change and new buzz words develop and new irons get hot. No more worrying that you can't find a place for your work because gatekeepers have worries predicated on sales or saving face or being seen as an outlet that accepts comics in the classroom.

I seek for SANE journal to become the central academic source for articles and thought on sequential art in education, whether it be pre-school, middle school, or graduate school.

The review board will pull from folks in the social sciences/education studies, the humanities, and comics scholarship. Due to my connections in the field, I already have a list of possible review board members. I hope to get the journal associated with Reading with Pictures, Institute for Comics Studies, NACAE, The Center for Cartoon Studies -- heck, maybe even ICAF, NCTE, and NAMLE eventually. I am also hoping to make connections with corporate entities dedicated to producing comics with educational/literacy value.

If you know anyone who might be a good review board member, feel free to e-mail me his or her name, as I'm happy to add to my list. I'm not at the "contact individuals for invites" yet, as I want to have as much information available to them before I ask them to join up with a nebulous construct.

Also, if you are associated with or know of an agency that might be a good source of funding, please let me know. I'll be spending some time writing grants for the project and working with my institution's Development Office in the coming months, but any and all leads are welcome.

At the very least, wish me well in this endeavor, which I feel is needed, necessary, important, and timely.

(*draft. may be expanded later. already expanded several times)