Comics Studies Society Annual Conference: Glitching Comics

In her 2020 publication Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, Legacy Russell explores the notion of “glitch-as-error with its genesis in the realm of the machinic and the digital.” With this framing, she argues that glitches might “inform the way we see the AFK [Away-From-Keyboard or real] world, shaping how we might participate in it toward greater agency for and by ourselves” (8-9). With her sights set on social systems of gender, race, and sexuality in particular, Russell asks how embodied subjects who defy patriarchal white supremacist cisheterosexist norms are positioned or appear as glitches, as errors, in digital and AFK spaces. Rather than take for granted the normative understanding of glitch-as-error, Russell argues for a feminist praxis that reconceives glitches as a form of refusal and a means by which to challenge the status quo. Russell is particularly interested in how artists record, perform, and embrace the glitch to expose our flawed social systems, explore the in-between, and “imagine new possibilities of what the body can do, and how this can work against the normative” (14). To read Russell’s work online or to hear her talking about glitch feminism see here: https://www.legacyrussell.com/GLITCHFEMINISM

Building on Russell’s bold and necessary work, the CSS Conference Committee invites members to join us in glitching comics. What can errors in production processes of print comics reveal about systems of racialization? How might digital reading practices expose industry sexism or ableism? What do creators accomplish when they embrace glitchy aesthetics? How do comics or comics media that dwell in the in-between or sit with discomfort help us to refuse violent social norms? How do marginalized creators take advantage of systemic failures?

Like Russell, we recognize the feedback loop between digital and AFK spaces so we encourage participants to draw on print or digital comics, comics-related media, or texts that actively blur these distinctions. The Comics Studies Society invites proposals for 15-minute individual papers, pre-formed panels, media objects (such as critical making, comics, video, Twine, or performance), and pedagogy or other workshops that engage with how comics (across forms, genres, media, experiences, regions, and cultures) disrupt the status quo. Topics may include but are by no means limited to: