Panelists, 2007
THE TWELFTH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL COMIC ARTS FORUM
Madison Building, Library of Congress, Washington DC
October 18-20, 2007
José Alaniz, assistant professor, teaches in the Departments of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle. His research interests include late/post-Soviet Russian literature and culture, Cinema, Death and Dying, Disability, Eco-criticism and Comics. He is currently writing a book on comics in Russia. Several chapters began life as ICAF presentations.
Josette Balsa published extensively as an art critic and curator, and curated exhibitions in Brazil (1980-1990), the U.S.A. and Asia (1991-2007). She presented Chinese artists at Sao Paulo Biennials (1994 and 1996) and Venice Biennale (1995). Holding degrees in several disciplines, she presently teaches Art Facilitation at Hong Kong University.
Frank Bramlett is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He teaches linguistics, sociolinguistics, English grammar and syntax, and discourse analysis. He researches anti-lgbt discourse, and he is currently exploring it in comics.
Jason Buchanan is a second year PhD Student at Purdue University, with a focus on contemporary Irish literature. Comic art, however, has always been a passion and a continued area of interest. His most recent work has been on the link between the superhero archetype and national identity.
Jay Casey is an assistant professor of history at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. His primary area of research includes the work of American soldier cartoonists during the wars of the twentieth century. He formerly worked as a journalist on the Gulf Coast and as a secondary school social studies teacher.
Jennifer Castel is a graduate student in the Department of Literature at American University in Washington, DC. She received her BA in Sociology and is interested in metafiction and narratology.
Damian Duffy is a graduate student in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Eye Trauma Comix and writes and letters several comics including The Hole: Consumer Culture, a graphic novel drawn by John Jennings (Front Forty Press, Winter 2008).
John Jennings is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Creative Director of Eye Trauma Comix. His research centers around utilizing popular culture in design pedagogy. He contributed a chapter in the anthology Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design (Princeton Architectural Press).
Noriko Inomata received a Master degree from Osaka Prefecture University (thesis on the "Reception of Japanese animation and manga in France"). In 2004-2006, she studied at the EHESS Paris (Master 2 thesis focusing on the editorial system of manga). She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at OPU.
Poliana Irizarry is a Reference Librarian at Temple University's Law School Library. While earning a Master of Science degree in Library and Information Science from Drexel University in 2006, Ms. Irizarry assisted in a major upgrade to Drexel's collection of graphic novels and comics materials at W.W. Hagerty Library.
Joshua Roberts is the Information Services Assistant at Drexel University's W.W. Hagerty Library, where he assisted in a major upgrade to the Library's collection of graphic novels and comics materials. Mr. Roberts received a Master of Science degree in Library and Information Science from Drexel University in 2006.
C. W. Marshall is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches Latin and Greek. His Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (CUP, 2006) will be followed by a book on Euripides' Helen and co-edited volumes on Battlestar Galactica and the intersection of Classics and Comics.
Todd S. Munson is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Randolph-Macon College, Virginia. He lived in Japan as a teacher and/or student from 1992-1994, 1996-1997, and 2002, and earned his Ph.D. in Japanese from Indiana University in 2004. His research explores 19th- and 20th- Japanese media and visual culture.
Ken Parille is Assistant Professor of English at East Carolina University. He has published essays on Daniel Clowes's David Boring, Abner Dean's cartoons, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and boyhood in antebellum America.His writings have appeared in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Children's Literature, New Literary History, Comic Art, Papers on Language and Literature, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, The Journal of Popular Culture, and The Boston Review.
Pedro Pérez del Solar (Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Linguistics, University of Texas at El Paso) teaches courses on Spanish literature and culture, including an advanced undergraduate seminar on contemporary Spanish comics. He is currently working on a book on that subject.
Robert Petersen is an assistant professor of Art,Theatre, and Asian Studies at Eastern Illinois University and a scholar of traditional Asian Art and Theatre who has written several articles on innovation in narrative traditions. His previous work includes research on Japanese manga, Sanskrit drama, and Javanese wayang.
Ernesto Priego, a poet, essayist, translator, and PhD candidate at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College, London, has taught English literature and critical theory at major Mexican universities and published a translation of Jessica Abel's award-winning graphic novel, La Perdida (Astiberri Editores, Spain, 2007) and a first book of poetry, Not Even Dogs (Meritage Press, 2006).
Ernesto Priego, a citizen of Mexico, is unable to present his paper at ICAF because he has been denied entry into the United States of America. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has not renewed his visa, nor have they given him any explanation why he will not be allowed into the country.
Phillip Troutman is an Assistant Professor of Writing at The George Washington University. He is using comics scholarship to develop a "proto-disciplinary" approach to first-year academic writing and research pedagogy. He and his students are helping develop the Gelman Library Graphic Novels Collection.
Joseph (Rusty) Witek is a Professor of English at Stetson University, where he has taught courses on comics since 1989. He is the author of Comic Books as History and a number of essays on comics; he regularly serves as a consulting editor on comics for academic periodicals and university presses. He most recently has edited a collection of interviews, Art Spiegelman: Conversations.
Benjamin Woo is a doctoral student in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, Canada. His master's thesis was on nationalist themes in Canadian comic books and graphic novels, and he is currently researching subcultures associated with the consumption of "geek" media and cultural commodities.
