The School of Art, Media and American Studies (AMA) has a thriving interdisciplinary research environment in the growing field of Comics Studies.
Faculty members from both AMA and other Schools have published widely on many different aspects of Comics Studies, and we have special research strengths in autobiographical comics, superheroes, comics and politics, formalist comics studies, horror comics, censorship, gender and sexuality in comics, and transmedia adaptations including superhero movies.
In addition, the School also hosts a regular series of Comics Studies research talks by invited external speakers, which connect us to the wider academic community in the field.
Members of the faculty also frequently attend major Comics Studies conferences, including those put on by the Comics Studies Society, the International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference, Comics Forum, the International Bande Dessinée Society, the German Society for Comics Studies, and the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics.
Recent Comics Studies scholarship published by our faculty members includes:
Autobiography is one of the most dynamic and quickly-growing genres in contemporary comics and graphic narratives. In Serial Selves, Frederik Byrn Køhlert examines the genre’s potential for representing lives and perspectives that have been socially marginalized or excluded. With a focus on the comics form’s ability to produce alternative and challenging autobiographical narratives, thematic chapters investigate the work of artists writing from perspectives of marginality including gender, sexuality, disability, and race, as well as trauma. Interdisciplinary in scope and attuned to theories and methods from both literary and visual studies, the book provides detailed formal analysis to show that the highly personal and hand-drawn aesthetics of comics can help artists push against established narrative and visual conventions, and in the process invent new ways of seeing and being seen.
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