2nd Annual!
Dragon*Con Comics and Popular Arts Conference
Dedicated to the scholarly examination of the media, genres,
and universes that Dragon*Con celebrates.
Brought to you by Dragon*Con's Comics and Popular Art, Anime/Manga, SF/Fantasy Literature, and Star Trek Tracks and the Institute for Comics Studies
Program
D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #8: Symposium on ASSEMBLED! and ASSEMBLED! 2
Fri 01:00 pm Location: Hanover F - Hyatt (60 min)
Kurt Busiek once called the Avengers “Marvel’s varsity,” and yet they often seem more like a loosely-grouped all-star squadthan a genuine, cohesive team in the fashion of the Fantastic Four or X-Men; more prone to internal squabbles and bickering than smooth, unified action. What holds the team together and pushes them through to victory—often in spite of themselves? What has made the team (and its various comics) so appealing to readers, through its many incarnations, over the decades? Is there some special thing, some extra ingredient, which marks the Avengers as special? What special contributions, for good or ill, have been added by the various creative teams that have worked on the book over the past forty-plus years? And do the “Big Three” of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America help--or hurt--the team’s effectiveness and the book’s appeal? Van Plexico (Southwestern Illinois College), Keith DeCandido, Joe Crowe, and George Kopec explore these themes as laid out in their books ASSEMBLED and the new ASSEMBLED 2, critically acclaimed books that explore the history and impact of Marvel’s Avengers, benefiting the HERO Initiative charity.
D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #1: Star Trek Scholarship
Fri 04:00 pm Location: Savannah 1 - Sheraton (60 min)
Description: Jessica Sheffield (The Pennsylvania State University) reflects on J.J. Abrams' reboot of the Star Trek universe, arguing that it represents a remix of classical characters and themes with contemporary culture in a postmodern key, where characters are more flawed and ethical considerations are less important.
D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #5: Ethics in/of Comics
Fri 07:00 pm; Location: Hanover F - Hyatt (60 min)
Scholarly presentations on the role of ethics as portrayed in and in the production of comics. Shaun Treat (University of North Texas) discusses the "Frankenstein Myth" and the paradoxical ethical attitudes towards technology in recent movies based on comic book superheroes. Charles Henebry (Boston University) examines the difference between homage and artistic theft, and argues that the former is an important, indirect medium of communication between artists and fans.
D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #4: Anime East/West
Sat 05:30 pm Location: Courtland - Hyatt (80 minutes)
Scholars explore important points of influence between Japanese Anime & Manga and Western culture. Brent Allison (University of Georgia) reports on an ethnographic study of anime fan clubs at two U.S. colleges and participants of U.S. anime conventions, examining the way in which American fans develop conceptions of Japanese culture in order to interpret unfamiliar relationships amongst anime characters. Damien Williams looks at the influence of Western Esoteric though---alchemy, magic, occultism, etc.---on both Japanese and American popular culture, exploring the way that the manga/anime series Full Metal Alchemist and Alan Moore's Promethea typify the way that Western Esotericism has captured the modern popular imagination, East and West.
D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #6: Public Use of Comics
Sat 07:00 pm; Location: Hanover F - Hyatt (60 min)
Three scholars show different ways in which the comics medium is put to use in the public sphere. Veronika Tzankova (Simon Fraser University) shows how Turkish comics use surreptitiously contribute to a politically charged conversation in the unstable socio-political situation in Turkey. Dalel Serda (The University of Texas-Pan American) examines Joe Sacco's jounalistic comics like Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde and their potential for greater emotional authenticity than standard reporting. Axel Staehler (University of Kent) discusses fundamentalist appropriations of the superhero genre and comics medium in texts such as Left Behind and Jack Chick's religious tracts for the purposes of disseminating a religious message.
D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #2: The Historical Roots of SF & Fantasy
Sat 08:30 pm Location: Greenbriar - Hyatt (80 min)
Scholarly presentations on the historical roots of SF and fantasy. Richard Scott Nokes (Troy University) explores the medieval roots of human hybrids---characters such as elves, trolls, and cyborgs that play an important role in SF and fantasy---challenging the notion that such characters arise from distinctively contemporary hopes and anxieties bout the posthuman. Luis Arata (Quinnipiac University) discusses Somnium, a SF/fantasy novel by 17th Century astronomer Johannes Kepler, in which Kepler develops and defends in narrative form elements of Copernican physics that he would later discover through formal mathematics.
D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #3: Identity in SF & Fantasy
Time: Sun 11:30 am Location: Greenbriar - Hyatt (60 min)
How do portrayals of villians, monsters, and aliens reflect or challenge our conceptions of human identity? Racheline Maltese argues that the Harry Potter character Severus Snape represents a distinctive feminine heroic archetype, filling a perceived void in J. K. Rowling’s world.
D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #7: History, Technology, and Identity in Comics
Sun 07:00 pm; Location: Hanover F - Hyatt (60 min)
These scholars discuss different ways that issues of identity play a role in superhero comics. Ben Bolling (UNC- Chapel Hill) examines comics continuity---the attempt to preserve narrative identity across issues, authors, and series---through the lens Hayden White's historiography. Matthew J. Brown argues that Wonder Woman was originally designed by her creator William Moulton Marston as a mass media technology for re-educating the youth according to his own ideas of psychological and emotional normalcy.
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