13th Annual
Comics and Popular Arts Conference
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cancellation of DragonCon, in lieu of our ordinary annual conference, the Comics and Popular Arts Conference decided to organize an asynchronous conference to coincide with #DragonConGoesVirtual. Here you will find video presentations and papers by our peer-reviewed presenters organized by track. Additionally, selected presentations will be live-streamed as part of the DragonCon Main programming. The details for those events are below.
Main Programming Live Stream Events
Comics
Saturday, September 5 at 8:30AM EST
https://www.facebook.com/events/308850967025859/
Academics Assemble! A Roundtable on Advancing Comics Studies
Presented by:
Randy Duncan (Henderson State University),
Matthew J. Smith (Radford University),
Jeffrey A. Brown (Bowling Green State University),
Nhora Lucia Serrano (Hamilton College),
Leigh Ann Howard (University of Southern Illinois), and
Susanna Hoeness-Krupsaw (University of Southern Illinois).
Sunday, September 6 at 8:30AM EST
https://www.facebook.com/events/346193636381759/
Race and Gender in Comics Panel
Title: Saving Batman: Defying Gender Roles in DC Comics
Presenters: Christopher Richardson, Brooke Davis, & Gracie Maples (Young Harris College)
Title: The Formation of a Black Trauma Identity: Wakanda vs. African American Trauma Identity Formation
Presenters: Jillian Browning (University of Florida) and Tasha Browning (Walden University)
Title: From Judo Tricks to Hairstyle Tips: Supplemental Comic Features and the Creation of a Feminized Space
Presenter: Andrew Grunzke (Mercer University)
Animation
Monday, September 7 at 2PM EST
Title: Making a Disney Villain
Presenter: Melanie Wadell
Using Disney’s tradition of visual coding for villains, can we make the case that the true villain of Beauty and the Beast was never Gaston?
Comics
Title: The Asian comic book superhero and his detrimental influence on the Asian-American male’s social mobility
Presenter: Ramal L. Johnson (Norfolk State University)
An examination of how American popular culture encourages Asian-American men to embrace characteristics that become detrimental to their social mobility and acceptance.
Title: How to Use Graphic Novels to Overcome Obstacles to Media Literacy Education within US Prisons Presenter: Drew Emanuel Berkowitz
Berkowitz discusses his own experiences conducting graphic novel-based literacy programs in maximum and medium-security correctional facilities which has to led to intersectional discussions on race, sexuality, and gender
Title: Ink Stains: Crossing the Lines with Race and Nation in American Political Cartoons
Presenter: Jose Santos P. Ardivilla, MA (Texas Tech University School of Art)
Ardivilla discusses national symbols such as Uncle Sam in political cartoons and their use in notions on nation, imperialism, and race.
Title: A Powerful Forum: The National Social Welfare Assembly Comics Project
Presenter: Evan R. Ash, MA (University of Maryland)
Ash gives a historical and contextual analysis of the Comics Project which utilized comics as PSAs and for kids demonstrating that American views on the power of comics were diverse.
Title: The New Boom! Studios BuffyVerse Comics: Character Representation, Social Media Use, and Relevance to a New Generation of Readers
Presenter: Margaret A. Robbins, PhD (The Mount Vernon School)
Robbins looks at the Boom Studios release of BuffyVerse Comics to analyze how they have been adapted to appeal to the experiences and issues of Generation Z and youth culture.
Title: Sensing a Sequential Summer: How This One Summer’s Formal Aesthetics Engage the Reader’s Habitus
Presenter: Jayson Quearry (Georgia State University)
PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cyVwTl_B6-wM1JGDzc96-mUhIy8IBeCs/view?usp=sharing
Quearry analyzes how This One Summer’s formal design acts as a case study for how comics can phenomenologically engage a reader’s stored body memory.
X-Track
Title: The Curious Case of Jap Herron and other Paranormal Legal Cases
Presenter: Tiernan Cole
A discussion of the ways in which paranormal evidence has been used throughout American legal history to convict criminals, invalidate agreements, and to protect property rights.
Diversity in Speculative Fiction & Literature Fandom
Title: Monstrous Women: The Function of Gender Roles in Cold War Propaganda
Presenter: Meredith Poulton (University of Alabama in Huntsville)
In this video, Poulton examines how women were used in science fiction films produced during the Cold War to depict communism as a threat to the continued existence of American culture.
Title: Foxy Ladies and Badass Super Agents: A Legacy of 1970s Blaxploitation Heroines
Presenter: Carlie N. Todd ( University of South Carolina)
PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xk82qWd-o5ISkB4AKSXX0xyopBXFPhTP/view?usp=sharing
Using cultural history and film study methods, Todd aims to understand how Black actresses’ portrayals as spies and detectives in 1970s Blaxploitation films influenced spy film fantasy.
Star Wars
Title: Bounty Hunting is a Complicated Business
Presenter: Tiernan Cole
This presentation contrasts the popular media presentations of bounty hunters with established law in the United States. Examples are taken from The Bounty Hunters Guild.
Table Top Gaming
Title: Games and Game Mechanics for Developing Interpersonal Skills in College Classrooms
Presenters: John Harris (Georgia Southern University)
This workshop demonstrates how social deception games and traditional roleplaying games can be used in higher education to reinforce various topics.
Title: Using Role-Playing Games to Support Academic Objectives: Exploring Antigone
Presenter: Laurence Brenner (Bronx Community College)
Brenner discusses the use of role-playing games in the high school classroom using a case study of a game for Sophocle’s Antigone.
SF Lit
Title: Sci-Fi Literature of Goddess Hope: N.K. Jemisin and Madeline Miller
Presenter: Mary Magoulick (Georgia College & State University)
Magoulick examines the role of hopepunk in the female protagonists in Jemisin’s and Miller’s sci-fi literature.
Horror
Title: What Little Girls Are Made Of: Crypt TV and the Return of the Girl Monster
Presenter: Savanna Teague (Middle Tennessee State University)
Teague provides critical analysis of the “creepy little girl” archetype and explores the construction of the Monstrous-Feminine in regards to depictions of young girls in horror media.
Title: Beasts of the Early Republic: Animal Citizenship and Puritan Eco-Horror in Robert Eggers’s New England
Presenter: Coyote Shook (The University of Texas at Austin)
PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p-YcxL-UrRdaYYaZ_sZkRGVRt3qwz8Eg/view?usp=sharing
Shook argues that Eggers’s New England horror in The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019) is a direct extension in both films of a Puritan “spirit of Capitalism” and a sadistic obsession with an American Calvinist God that gives way to masochistic eroticism.
The Comics and Popular Arts Conference (CPAC) is an annual academic conference for the studies of comics and the popular arts, including science/speculative fiction and fantasy literature, film, and other media, comic books, manga, graphic novels, anime, gaming, etc. CPAC presentations are peer reviewed, based in scholarly research. Find out more at our website:
CPAC Coordinating Board:
Kari Neely, Middle Tennessee State University – Coordinator
Johnathan Flowers, Worcester State University – Vice Coordinator
Matthew J. Brown, University of Texas at Dallas – Founder and Program Chair
Richard Scott Nokes, Troy University
Daniel Amrhein, Independent Scholar
Jillian Marie Browning, University of Florida
Damien Williams, Virginia Tech
Vickie Willis Navarra, Independent Scholar
Erin Gordon, Daytona State College
Keep an eye on our website and social media for our Call for Papers for CPAC 2021!
CPAC takes place at DragonCon each year thanks to the generosity of the DragonCon track heads and other organizers. CPAC is not affiliated with the DragonCon organization. CPAC is an all-volunteer group aimed at bringing peer-reviewed academic content to DragonCon. It is supported by the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas. We hope you enjoy our programming! Please ask us how to get involved.