ICAF 2008 Conference Schedule


Presented by the ICAF Executive Committee and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
October 9-11, 2008

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, SAIC Ballroom
9:30-9:45 Welcome and Introduction

9:45-10:45 PANEL 1: Comics in and of Chicago
Moderated by Ana Merino, ICAF Executive Committee
  • David Olsen (Saint Louis University), We Are Not Our Own Animals: Max Ernst, Art Spiegelman, and Paul Hornschemeier
  • Barbara Postema (Michigan State University),“Welcome to Chickenopolis": The Urban Utopianism of Sara Varon’s Chicago

11:00-12:00 PANEL 2: Disease and Disability in Comics
Moderated by Charles Hatfield, ICAF Executive Committee
  • Bruce Dadey (Laurentian University),Breaking Quarantine: Image, Text, and Disease in Black Hole, Epileptic, and Our Cancer Year
  • José Alaniz (University of Washington Seattle),Disability in/as the Works of Chris Ware

12:00-1:300 Lunch break

1:30-3:30 PANEL 3: Racial Identity
Moderated by Stanford Carpenter, ICAF Executive Committee
  • Frank Bramlett (University of Nebraska at Omaha), Interrogating Linguistic Blackface in Afro Samurai
  • Gert Meesters (Université de Liège, Belgium), Creating a Deviant Identity in a Patriarchal Environment: Bitterkomix' Use of Provocation, Honesty and Subculture as Discursive Weapons
  • Hectór Fernández L’Hoeste (Georgia State University), From Mexifornia to Newyorktitlan: East vs. West Meets the Mexican Tradition
  • Brian Patton (King’s College at the University of Western Ontario), Urban Jungle Action: Blaxploitation in Four Colours

4:30-5:30 Presentation of the John A. Lent Scholarship in Comics Studies
ICAF Executive Committee and John A. Lent, presenters
Lent Scholarship Lecture: Ben Little (Middlesex University, UK)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, SAIC Ballroom
9:30-10:30 PANEL 4: Comics as response to socio-historical context
Moderated by Ana Merino, ICAF Executive Committee
  • Martha Kuhlman (Bryant University), Time Machine: Prague's Wilson Main Train Station by Jaroslav Rudiš and Jaromír 99
  • Matthew Costello (Saint Xavier University),From Eco to Baudrillard in Universe X: The Function of the Superhero under Late Capitalism

11:00-12:00 PANEL 5: Narrative strategies
Moderated by Ana Merino, ICAF Executive Committee
  • Tracy Canfield (Indiana University), Artificer: The Representation of Subjectivity in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home
  • Roy T. Cook (University of Minnesota), The Influence of Cinema on Silver Age and Post-Silver Age Comics

2:00-1:00 Lunch break

1:00-2:00 John A. Lent (Temple University), Out of Africa: The Saga of Exiled Cartoonists in France
Introduced by Ana Merino, ICAF Executive Committee

2:15-3:15 Pascal Lefèvre (Sint-Lukas Brussels University College of Art and Design, Belgium),Researching Early Comics: A Case Study: Belgium in Relation to Other Countries (1880-1930)
Introduced by Cécile Danehy, ICAF Executive Committee

4:00-5:00 Guided tour of the Playboy Archives

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, SAIC Gene Siskel Film Center
9:00-10:30 Artist Presentation: JORGE OPAZO ELLICKER, AKA Jorge Quién (Argentina/Chile)
Dialogue between Comics and Contemporaneous Art
Introduced by Mark Nevins, ICAF Executive Committee

10:45-12:15 Artist Presentation: NICOLAS MAHLER(Austria)
Introduced by Mark Nevins, ICAF Executive Committee

12:45-1:15 Artist Presentation: Damian Duffy (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign),
"Out of Sequence," A preview of the exhibition "Out of Sequence: Underrepresented Voices in American Comics," co-curated by John Jennings and Damian Duffy for the Krannert Art Museum at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Introduced by Stanford Carpenter, ICAF Executive Committee