The annual University of Florida Comics Conference will be this Friday and Saturday. The conference events will be held at Emerson Alumni Hall (on University Avenue, across from the stadium) and the program is on the conference website and posted below. The keynote speakers are the incredible Phoebe Gloeckner, Gail Simone, and Sally Cruikshank.
Friday, March 21st
- 9-10:15 AM – Panel 1: The “Body” of the Text
“‘Time is a Man / Space is a Woman’: Narrative + Visual Pleasure = Gender Confusion,” Aaron Kashtan
“Eggs, Birds and ‘an Hour for Lunch’: A Vision of the Grotesque Body in Clyde Fans: Book 1 by Seth,” John Kennett
“Love in the Binding,” Laurie Taylor - 10:30-11:45 – Panel 2: Groensteen’s Networked Relations
“Memory and Sexuality: An Arthrological Study of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,” Adrielle Mitchell
“The Joy of Plex: Erotic Arthrology, Tromplographic Intercourse, and ‘Interspecies Romances’ in Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg,” Daniel Yezbick
“Our Minds in the Gutters: Native American Women, Sexuality, and George O’Connor’s Graphic Novel Journey into Mohawk Country,” Melissa Mellon - 11:45-1:15 – Lunch
- 1:15-2:30 – Panel 3: Women on Top
“Buxom Moebius Strip: The Hyperreal World of Gilbert Hernandez’s Fantastic Women,” Sacha Krader and Austin Rich
“‘Are You Ready?’: Renee Montoya and the Question of Lesbian Identity,” Karen Burrows
“Just One Damned Dildo After Another: Pornographic Space in the Work of Colleen Coover and Molly Kiely,” Lyndsay Brown - 2:45-4:00 – Panel 4: Performance and Positions
“The Queering of Haruhi Fujioka: Cross-Dressing, Camp and Commoner Culture in Ouran High School Host Club,” Tania Darlington
“She-Rambos in Lipstick: Authorial and Artistic Depictions of Androgyny and Femininity in Comics,” Hannah Dame
“Reading between the (Panty) Lines: The Body as Ethnographic Text in Jaime Hernandez’s Recent Narratives,” Derek Royal - 4-6 PM – Dinner
- 6-7:30 – Phoebe Gloeckner Keynote
- 7:30-9:30 – Reception Ustler Hall
Saturday, March 22nd
- 9-10:15 – Panel 5: The Figure on the Page
“‘Gimme Gimme This, Gimme Gimme That’: Confused Sexualities and Genres in Cooper and Myerson’s Horror Hospital Unplugged,” James Newlin
“How to Draw the (DC and) Marvel Way: How Changes in Representation of Female Bodies and Attitudes are Changing ‘Superheroine Chic,'” Mollie Dezern
“‘The Muse or the Viper: Excessive Depictions of the Female in Les Bas-Bleus and Cerebus,'” Tof Eklund - 10:30-11:45 – Panel 7: Let’s Transgress
“I for Integrity: Futurity, (Inter)Subjectivities, and Sidekicks in Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns,” Jordana Greenblatt
“The Joker Wears Purple: Gender Transgressive Villains and Trickster Archetypes in Superhero Comics,” Rachel Edidin
“Otherness, Perversion and the Transformed Male Body in Seinen and Shounen Manga,” Katherine Schaeffer - 11:45-1:15 – Lunch
- 1:30-3:00 – Sally Cruikshank Keynote
- 3:30-4:45 – Library Exhibit of UF: National Obsessions: Twentieth Century Pop Culture, Comics and Cross-Promotional Merchandizing. Featuring comics, movies/TV, and pop culture items from Star Wars, Peanuts, Walt Disney, and Superman and Batman
- 5-6:30 – Gail Simone Keynote