[ecrea] CFP: Nordic History and Cultural Memory in Comics (special issue of Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art)

Call
for Papers


From
the Land of the Midnight Sun:
Nordic
History and Cultural Memory in Comics


Special
Issue of Scandinavian
Journal of Comic Art

The
past is all around us, not least in our entertainments. It is also a
highly malleable thing that can be moulded and shaped to tell us who we
are, who we should be, and where we came from. The myriad ways in which
conceptions about the past can be informed by contemporary concerns and
the ways the past can be used to legitimize present practices and ideas
have been ably charted by scholars in the rapidly growing field of
memory studies. Although highly interdisciplinary, comics studies has
yet to truly enter this field, despite the fact that its subject matter
provides ample opportunity for studies of representations of history
and memory.

Nordic
comics history and comics that represent the past and present of the
Nordic countries provide one of many possible inroads into these
fruitful lines of inquiry. For example, Nordic comics, from early
comics strips through locally produced contemporary comic books, like
the Swedish funny animal series Bamse,
Norwegian humor series Nemi,
the Finnish Moomin
stories,
Danish strip Poeten
og Lillemor,
and many more, all provide a vast and still largely unstudied archive
of historical perspectives and attitudes. Similarly, Nordic comics
creators, like “Team Fantomen,” who have produced the majority of
Phantom stories for regional publication since the 1960s, make frequent
use of the Nordic past as a setting or story element. In addition,
varying degrees of adulation or criticism inform biographical and
historical comics and graphic novels about personages like Swedish
writer August Strindberg and Elias Lönnrot, compiler of Kalevala,
Finland’s national epic. Finally, it can be noted that the Viking Age
and conceptions about its culture and beliefs have been a particularly
inspiring topic for comics creators, spawning among others Peter
Madsen’s long-running and often ideologically anachronistic Valhalla,
several adaptations of Swedish writer Frans G. Bengtsson’s Röde
Orm
(The
Long Ships
or Red
Orm
in English), and, in 2013, the superhero-inspired The
Norseman.

Furthermore,
comics have helped make Nordic history and memory international
imaginative currency. The Viking Age has been a particularly frequent
topic, appearing in American mainstream comics like Marvel’s Thor
and Vertigo’s Northlanders,
Japanese Manga like Viking
Saga
and King
of Viking,
and Franco-Belgian album series like Asterix,
Thorgal,
and Johan
and Peewit.
In these comics, and in many others like them, the creators use a past
not their own to speak to and about their own time and place. But in
recent years, Nordic comics have also increasingly appeared in
translation, perhaps most notably in such anthologies as Kolor
Klimax,
From
Wonderland with Love,
and the United States’ 2010 “Swedish Invasion.” In various ways, these
comics contend with preconceived notions about the Nordic countries and
Nordicness.

The
Scandinavian
Journal of Comic Art
is planning a special issue on Nordic history and cultural memory in
comics, and invites articles about these and related matters. Welcome
topics include, but are not limited to:

    *
      Representation
      of Nordic historical personages and events
    *
      Nordic
      comics and the search for a useable past
    *
      Comics
      and revisionist Nordic historiography
    *
      Comics,
      the past, and Nordic social criticism
    *
      Nordic
      stereotypes and stereotyped Nordics
    *
      Vikings
      and Old Norse religion in comic strips, comic books, graphic novels,
      and bandes dessinées
    *
      Nordic
      comics in translation
    *
      The
      reception of Nordic comics abroad
    *
      What’s
      so Nordic about Nordic comics?


Please
send an abstract of max. 300 words, along with a short bio and contact
information, to (submissions /at/ sjoca.com). The
deadline for abstracts is October 1, 2014. Full articles due by January
1, 2015. We also welcome reviews and forum texts (brief, non-peer
reviewed scholarly commentaries, essays, and debate pieces). Interested
parties should review our submission guidelines at sjoca.com
and contact editor Martin Lund with a pitch or book request at 
(p.martin.lund /at/ gmail.com).

Scandinavian
Journal of Comic Art
(SJoCA) is an online, open-access, peer reviewed academic journal about
comics and sequential art. The journal is interdisciplinary,
encouraging a wide range of theoretical and methodological
perspectives. Although the journal is rooted in the Nordic countries
(Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), it is global in scope
and aims to publish high quality research regardless of national or
regional boundaries. The journal publishes articles, book reviews, and
forum texts from the field of comics studies. The language of the
journal is English.

Scandinavian
Journal of Comic Art
is an independent journal and is published by the non-profit
organisation Scandinavian
Journal of Comic Art.

---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------