Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Speaking at MIT this Thursday

Very exciting news - I will be speaking at MIT in Boston this Thursday, October 23rd with fellow panelists Jeet Heer and Ho Che Anderson.

Needless to say I'm really excited, nervous and really honored. Here's the full info:

Comics and Social Conflict
Ho Che Anderson, Jeet Heer, & Diana Tamblyn
Thursday, October 23, 5:00 -7:00 PM, MIT

The Paris GunComics have emerged as a key means of interpreting and disseminating controversial and contested histories: Chester Brown's Louis Riel, Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen, Joe Sacco's Palestine, and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis are just some of the works that take definitive social and political conflict as their topic.

Why has historical material become so important for comics art? What unique opportunities does comics allow for critiquing and revising dominant historical narratives? These are the questions our speakers will discuss, in relation to their own work and to the comics world in general. Diana Tamblyn is writing a biography of Canadian arms trader and weapons engineer Gerald Bull; Ho Che Anderson authored King, a 3-volume biography of Martin Luther King; and Jeet Heer is a historian and a leading comics scholar.

Admission: Free. Open to the Public.

Here's what the building looks like where we will be speaking - just a little bit daunting!

Full info can be found here at the MIT website.

Then Friday afternoon, Ho Che and I will be reviewing work by any students who want feedback on their portfolios.

I'm really interested that they selected three Canadians to talk about this subject. Should be really interesting and certainly very topical! I've also never been to Boston before so I'm looking forward to doing a bit of exploring.