On Saturday, November 18, 2017, the American Academy of Religion annual conference hosted the panel “Responses to Muslim Superheroes,” including presentations by Elizabeth Coody, Mohamed Hassan, Constance Kassor, and Aaron Ricker, with Scott Gardner as presider and A. David Lewis as respondent. Here are their presentations in their entirety from that morning session.
Based out of the University of Florida’s Comics Studies track within the the Department of English, the Comix-Scholars Discussion List (COMIX-SCHOLARS-L) hosts lively and diverse free, digital conversation between subscribed members invested in comics as a field of study. And sometimes that discussion turns to religion and comics, as it did on Wednesday, November 18th when S&S’s own Beth Davies-Stofka asked the List:
I’m tying up some loose ends on a writing project that relates to scholarship focused on religion in comics.
I have about 250 words that I can devote to the topic of the study of religion in Indian comics. I have Karline McLain’s book, India’s Immortal Comic Books, which I am regarding as a kind of “first” in the field of religious studies.
But I’d like to know if there is work being done on the subject in languages other than English.
Anyone know?
Continue reading Transcript: Comix Scholars List Discusses Indian Comics and Manga
Over at Dreamcatcher.com, George Atherton provided the Internet a service by saving a cataloging the Tibetan Book of the Dead from Thomas Coville’s defunct personal site. The illustrated work itself attempts to paint a (digital) picture of the psycho-spiritual levels of the Tibetan afterlife, the Bardo Thodol.
Coincidentally, this work was highlighted in a brief posting by Rev. Danny Fisher back in 2008 entitled “Holy Bardo, Batman” — that same year, the very same superhero enacted a death sequence as part of Grant Morrison’s Batman R.I.P. storyline where he entered a comatose trance enabled from his secret Tibetan training. (Chronicled by Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal in his book Mutants and Mystics.)
Rao has seen this on the Comics Scholars List, the UPenn CFP site, and the H-Net site, but here it is from organizer A. David Lewis’s own blog:
Call for Papers: On the Scholarship of Religion and Comic Books
Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association
April 11-14, 2012
Boston, MAArea: Religion & Culture, Comics & Comic Art (joint session)
Moderator: A. David Lewis (Boston University)Overview: The last half-dozen years have seen an explosion in U.S. publications addressing the intersection of religion and comics, but little has been said on the body of work taken as a whole. Outside of individual reviews, rarely are these works discussed in terms of their applications, their intertextuality, their audiences, their shortcomings, or the new questions they raise. This panel is to act as a forum addressing either portions of these works, entire books, their shared space, or the next steps to which they may all lead. In addition to the print publications recommended below, this panel also invites reflections on some of the websites and blogs conducting similar work, also listed:
Books: Superheroes: Religion and Popular Culture (2005), Up, Up, and Oy Vey (2006), Our Gods Wear Spandex (2007), Superheroes and Gods: A Comparative Study from Babylonia to Batman (2007), Disguised as Clark Kent (2007), Holy Superheroes! Revised and Expanded Edition (2008), From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books (2008), The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches (2008), Jews and American Comics (2008), India’s Immortal Comic Books: Gods, Kings, and Other Heroes (2009), Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels (2010), Supergods (2011), The Seven Spiritual Laws of the Superhero (2011), Do the Gods Wear Capes? (2011)
Online: ComicAttack.net “Comics Are My Religion” columns, ComicBookBin.com “Religion and Comics” columns, By Rao! Religion and Religion site, Jewish Comicsblog, Faith in Four Colors site
Other English-language, U.S. market pieces of scholarship may be considered, but the focus should remain on already-produced analysis, not on works-in-progress nor on the comics themselves. Submissions should be thoughtful reflections on how these pieces function, what opportunities they present, where they may fail, and what has been overlooked.
Abstracts of 100-250 words, a C.V., and brief bio are due by December 1 to ADL at bu dot edu for consideration.
Additional titles for consideration might include Jeffrey John Kripal’s Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred or interviews by The Gnostic with Alan Moore, perhaps.
A portion of American Born Chinese author Gene Luen Yang’s mediation on why comics and Christianity don’t — but likely should — mix can be found at the Sojourners blog site. (The full writing requires a membership and login to Sojourners.) In the piece, he’s reminded of how the local comics shop disturbed his mother’s sensibilities yet should have, in his view, been a natural ally to the Christian faith:
She didn’t know it at the time, but my mother had just played out in microcosm the long, antagonistic relationship between Christianity and comics. Since its inception in 1933, the modern comic book has drawn the ire of preachers, priests, and parents. Committees and associations have been formed on both sides of the struggle.
This animosity is curious, especially since Christianity and comic books have a lot in common. Christianity was established by a small band of poor Jewish men who loved stories. Almost 2,000 years ago, Peter, James, John, and their peers in the neighborhoods of Galilee gathered around a wonder-worker who taught by telling stories. From this community grew the largest religion on earth.
Yang recently released his latest graphic novel Level Up about his adolescence and young adulthood as an Asian American, also printed by American Born Chinese publisher First Second. For a separate discussion with Yang about Christian themes in that earlier book (and whether or not they replaced originally Buddhist content), see this interview with the Kartika Review.
