PopCC Director Biz Nijdam Invited to Speak at 2025 Comics Studies Society Conference

PopCC Director Biz Nijdam Invited to Speak at 2025 Comics Studies Society Conference

Pop Culture Cluster Director Dr. Biz Nijdam has been invited to speak at the Graduate Student Caucus’ 10 Year Anniversary Roundtable to be held during the upcoming Comics Studies Society Conference. Read below for more on the conference and the Call for Papers!

This is a call for papers for the 2025 Annual Conference of the Comic Studies Society. The Call reads: "Since the turn of the century, comics have considered the contested nature of American identity. Comic strips, comic books, and editorial cartoons featured stereotypes and caricatures that contributed to non-white people’s marginalization in the United States and advanced narratives of U.S. exceptionalism. The weight of this visual history often obscures the moments when artists, writers, and publishers fought against the regressive imaginary and offered something new. From the dynamic imagination of African American cartoonists such as Jay Jackson’s Bungleton Green in the 1940s to contemporary comic innovators such as C. Spike Trotman’s Iron Circus Comics, the urge to create diverse comics has a long legacy. Given this history, we celebrate the resistance, resilience, and resolution demonstrated in the comic medium. As we approach the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, it’s a time to reflect on the progress made and the work that still lies ahead. We recognize that the revolution will be drawn and celebrate the artists, scholars, and communities that embrace the comic medium to do so. We celebrate an expanding literature in comic studies that highlights how those groups, often framed at the margin, have moved to the center of the cultural conversation. This is achieved not only through the celebration of characters that reflect them but also by seizing the imagined affordance of the comic form to elevate, transform, and inspire new conversation. Building on the dynamic comic scholarship that recognizes how readers leveraged the imagined affordance of the comic page to create new worlds and challenge old paradigms. We invite comics scholars from around the world to submit proposals for the 8th annual Comics Studies Society that engage in topics pertaining to the transformative potential of comics. Some possible topics: Graphic representations of social justice movements Biography, liberation, and comics Contemporary African-American cartoonists Contemporary webcomics and identity Fandoms and identity Transmedia storytelling Satire and political cartooning Afrofuturism in legacy and new media texts Recovering lost voices (Re-)narrating the past Comics production and community The social and political work of comics Comics and/as community Transnational comics production Comics journalism and protest Comics engaged with ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, DRC, and Nicaragua Comics engaging with the history and legacy of ethnic violence Hidden legacies of transnational creators Site-specific readings of comic texts" The keynote artist is Ho Che Anderson The keynote Scholar is TreaAndrea Russworm

The 2025 CSS Conference “Resistant, Resilient, and Resolute: Social Justice and Comics” will take place Thursday, July 10, 2025 – Saturday, July 12, 2025 at Michigan State University. The conference will focus on the ways in which “Since the turn of the century, comics have considered the contested nature of American identity.”

Alongside other former and current members of the Graduate Student Caucus (GSC) of the Comics Studies Society (CSS), Dr. Nijdam will reflect on her time as President of GSC, the work of the GSC in supporting and mentoring graduate students researching comics and graphic novels, and how the academic field of comics studies has changed in the last decade.

To learn more about the conference and how to watch the Graduate Student Caucus’ 10 Year Anniversary Roundtable, you can visit the GSC conference page.

The Xwémalhkwu Hero Stories Project Featured in chek+ News Interview

Xwémalhkwu Hero Stories: A Graphic Novel, a collaboration with the Homalco First Nation, Education without Borders (EwB),and the UBC Comic Studies Cluster was recently featured on the chek+ platform in an episode of their Our Native Land series. You can watch the episode here!

This graphic novel is the result of the UBC Comics Studies Cluster’s “Remember Comics Project,” which commissioned three Indigenous cartoonists to visualize Homalco storytelling traditions and land-based knowledge.

Any individual or organization interested in purchasing the book is asked to reach out to the Homalco First Nation directly: heroes@homalco.com.

This project was co-funded by the Education without Borders, UBC Comics Studies Cluster, the Narratives Group in the UBC Centre for Migration Studies, the UBC Community Engagement Office, and the UBC Public Humanities Hub.

Announcing the Comics-to-Research Graduate Award Spring 2024-5 Winners!

Please join us in congratulating Spring 2024-5 Comics-to-Research Graduate Award winners Laen Hershler (Language and Literacy Education) and Cynthia Liu (Creative Writing)! 

Laen’s project Memory in Motion: Dialoguing with Holocaust Survivor Voices through Research-based Theatre and Performative Inquiry explores Holocaust memory through the embodied practice of theatre and audience reflection. Cynthia is working on a graphic novel entitled Splendid China, USA that blends historical research, feminist critique, and speculative fiction to explore immigration and reproductive justice. You can learn more about these amazing projects here! 

The Comics-to-Research Graduate Awards allow UBC graduate students to commission a cartoonist or comic artist to create an 8–12-page comic based on their graduate research. Capitalizing on visual storytelling as a form of arts-based knowledge mobilization, this opportunity allows awardees to share their work with a broader audience.  

Interested in applying for the Comics-to-Research Graduate Awards? Learn how here! 

Meet the 2024-5 recipients of the Pop Pedagogies Award!

The Popular Media for Social Change Research Excellence Cluster is excited to announce the 2024-5 recipients of the Pop Pedagogies Award. Please join us in congratulating them!

Each of these scholars is developing innovative lesson plans, modules, or units that meaningfully integrate popular media (imagined broadly) into teaching and learning. Over the coming year, you will be able to find their open-access learning materials in the Pop Pedagogies Lesson Plan Archive. Topics including the evolution of media and propaganda, the complex nature of disclaimers, role-play-based climate justice engagement, language learning via Cantonese stand-up comedy, Vikings in popular media, accessible and multisensory art appreciation, and contemporary Cantonese in hip-hop.  

You can learn more about these projects and the brilliant people behind them here! 

Charli Brown

Senior Program Assistant

(She/Her)

Charli Brown is a recent graduate of UBC’s MA in Children’s Literature program. She researches how gender, sexuality, and disability intersect with youth pop culture, especially fairy tales and monster media. In her free time, Charli loves to read webcomics, watch romcoms, and thrift vintage clothes. As Senior Program Assistant, Charli assists the Pop Culture Cluster with administration and communications.

You can contact Charli via email at pop.culture.comms@ubc.ca 

 

Home Page Banner Slide 05

Home Page Banner Slide 04

Call for Artists: Linguaphobia, Linguistic Indifference, Linguistic Disobedience, & the Monolingual University

 

Special Call for Artists: Linguaphobia, Linguistic Indifference, Linguistic Disobedience, & the Monolingual University 
Drs. David Gramling & Ervin Malakaj, UBC Comics Studies Cluster

Strangely, there’s a scarcity of visual art, photography, and graphic narratives when it comes to matters of language(s), translation, multilingualism and other aspects of linguistic life. Either you get clip art of diverse-looking people communicating with lots of hand gestures, an abstract representation of language conveyed in speech balloons with various alphabets, a clash of cultures, or a message “lost in translation”.

This project seeks to expand the visual language around these themes, inviting critical, conceptual, experimental, experiential, personal, and political work of various kinds that tests the boundaries and critical power of the concepts below.

We invite artists to compose a visual narrative on one or more of the following topics. Artists can interpret these themes freely, though we encourage artists to take topic’s associated survey (linked next to the concept) before making a proposal:

Project Timeline

  • June 30: Deadline for applications.
  • July 15: Artists will be notified of their selection.
  • July 21: Depending on the topic, artists might receive (or request) additional research material.
  • September 15: Thumbnails for graphic narratives will be due.
  • October 1: Project Team will provide feedback.
  • October 29: One-Day Symposium at UBC (Work-In-Progress Presentations)
  • December 31: Drafts of graphic narratives will be due.
  • January 31: Editorial comments and requested revisions will be provided.
  • February 29: Final versions of the graphic narratives are due.
  • April 2026: Exhibition & Final Symposium (Final Presentation of Works)

Compensation

Each artist will receive $1500 for their contribution to this project, which includes an initial consultation meeting and ongoing conversations with the project team,  participation in a one-day symposium to present works-in-progress, one round of revisions, the completion of a single 8-12-page comic, and a 500-750-word artist statement or reflection that elaborates on the comic by highlighting the artist’s intentions and motivations.  Artists will also be invited to participate a final symposium and an exhibition of their works at the conclusion of the project.

The team will engage up to six artists. Artists are encouraged to work in any language or mix of languages. About half of the projects should either be in English-only formats or feature appropriate translations for an English-speaking readership. The remaining projects might be in French, Indigenous languages, or other languages or mixes of languages.

Application Instructions:

Application materials should include the following in one PDF document:

  • Letter of Interest (maximum 1 page)
  • 3 examples of comic art (maximum 10 pages)
  • OPTIONAL Creative Statement or Thumbnails (for one of the various themes)

Applications are due Monday, June 30, 2025, by 5 pm PST.  Shortlisted candidates will be invited for a brief interview via Zoom at a mutually convenient time. Artists notified of their selection by July 15, 2025.

APPLY HERE

Questions?

For more information, please contact Dr. David Gramling, david.gramling@ubc.ca and cc Dr. Biz Nijdam, biz.nijdam@ubc.ca.

Board Games and the Archive

Created by Cal Smith

This lesson plan imagines a one-and-a-half-hour interactive session taught as part of a Board Games course for undergraduate students. While the session is designed for 20-25 students, adding more groups to the activities section would not be too difficult. Slightly more time should be allotted to presentations. The lesson plan includes two main sections: (1) Questions and answers related to the assigned reading and (2) An activity to familiarize students with the practice of archival studies. As many undergraduate students have likely never visited an archive, the lesson offers a primer on archival methodology and asks students to begin to think about the relationship between board games and the archive.

Objectives

General

  • To learn to have productive discussions in a group setting. To listen to other’s perspectives and to incorporate our own into the conversation.
  • To build a foundation for understanding how archives can be used in a research project. To consider both the power and the limits of archives as repositories of certain histories that we retell.

Specific

  • To practice library catalogue searching skills. To understand how libraries define their collections and how to navigate them.
  • To consider the socio-cultural importance of board games in relation to both their creation/use and their collection (or lack thereof).
  • To highlight archives as keepers of specific narratives about a place and a time. To understand how archives transmit what Mbembe calls an “instituting imaginary” that defines how we picture the past.
  • To produce work in groups that synthesizes students’ varying interests. Section 3 (questions in groups) could be substituted for discussion questions brought by students if designed into the course structure. This would further emphasize the importance of students’ interest in the topic and readings.

Materials

POP PEDAGOGIES LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE (CLONE ME)

Introduction

Change paragraph below

Mattis vulputate enim nulla aliquet porttitor lacus luctus accumsan tortor. Lectus urna duis convallis convallis. Tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum varius. Sit amet commodo nulla facilisi. Nulla aliquet enim tortor at. Diam volutpat commodo sed egestas. Morbi tincidunt ornare massa eget egestas purus viverra. Justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit. Suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam. Gravida in fermentum et sollicitudin.

Objective

Change paragraph below

Mattis vulputate enim nulla aliquet porttitor lacus luctus accumsan tortor. Lectus urna duis convallis convallis. Tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum varius. Sit amet commodo nulla facilisi. Nulla aliquet enim tortor at. Diam volutpat commodo sed egestas. Morbi tincidunt ornare massa eget egestas purus viverra. Justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit. Suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam. Gravida in fermentum et sollicitudin.

Materials

Change paragraph below

Mattis vulputate enim nulla aliquet porttitor lacus luctus accumsan tortor. Lectus urna duis convallis convallis. Tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum varius. Sit amet commodo nulla facilisi. Nulla aliquet enim tortor at. Diam volutpat commodo sed egestas. Morbi tincidunt ornare massa eget egestas purus viverra. Justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit. Suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam. Gravida in fermentum et sollicitudin.