NNCORE 2014: 2nd International Conference in Comics Studies

The most talked-about comic published in the last 10 years is not (that) funny, and it is not for children. In fact, it is about the Iranian revolution and a woman's life in a Muslim country. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is proof that comics as an art fo rm have an enormous potential beyond what the common conception of the medium seems to be. Persepolis is not an exception, but represents an aesthetic, narrative and thematic development that has been going on since at least the 1970s and has resulted in an impressive plurality and originality of comics as an art form and as a means of communication. Comics constitute works of art in their own right, while at the same time interacting with both new and traditional media, and with the societies of which th ey are part. In an ever more complex media landscape, the study of comics therefore contributes to a broadening of academic and public discourses about art, media, culture and society. However, comics are, at best, marginalized as a subject of study at research institutions worldwide, and even though more and more young scholars start their academic career within the comics field, many leave it and take up other subjects due to the lack of institutional frameworks of contact, coordination and collective work. NNCORE has in the past and continues now to provide such a framework, and the conference planned for Oslo in 2015 is part of these on-going activities. For this reason, our call for papers will not specify a particular topic within comics studies , but will instead remain open, so as to showcase the broad range of such research being done in the Nordic countries. The previous conference resulted in the creation of a comics theory reader (under press) as well as many individual publications. With this conference, we plan to use selected papers to be included in a guest-edited volume of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Taylor & Francis,) showcasing research from the Nordic countries.