April 12, 2007
Academics and Comics
I’ve presented with the PCA before, both nationally and regionally, since for many years while I was in graduate school the Modern Language Association—the major pinnacle of conferences in my field–very much frowned on papers having to do with comics unless they had something to do with a children’s literature panel. But in the 12 years between when I began graduate school and now, there’s been a definite jump in the number of academics who teach comics, the amount of scholarship on comics (just check out ICAF, for starters), and the response to that scholarship both inside of and external to the academy. Even in the five years since I’ve finished it does seem like the proverbial tide has actually turned a bit.
