Critical views on Latin American comic strips 

//// Deadline for Submission of Articles: 15 June 2023 ///// 

The Cultural Secretariat of the IILA - International Italo-Latin American Organisation, opens the call for participation in the 5th issue of the magazine "Quaderni Culturali IILA" - 2023. 

Latin American comic strips, as an object of study, had a slow entry into foreign universities and even more so in Latin American ones, undervaluing their cultural impact and the potential of their language. However, in recent years, this has begun to be reversed through the organisation of congresses and seminars, the emergence of specialised groups and journals, as well as the creation of chairs dedicated to their study (1). In these instances, the establishment and expansion of the canon has been discussed, as well as the status of the comic strip in the academic sphere, taking into account the tensions that arise when approaching it critically. 

For this reason, the new issue of the magazine "Quaderni Culturali IILA" will aim to focus on Latin American comic strips, considering their various artistic, cultural and political manifestations. 

The magazine "Quaderni Culturali IILA" invites researchers, institutions, and users to submit articles that propose critical readings of Latin American comics, based on the following themes: 

? The status of comic strips in Latin America. 

? Latin American comic circulation networks. 

? Feminisms, masculinities, and other identities. 

? Rescue of cultural heritage. 

? Reappropriation and influence of foreign comics (genres, manga, etc.). 

? Indigenisms. 

? Urban and rural spaces in Latin American comics. 

? Medicinal graphic narratives. 

? Historical or memory narratives. 

? Distribution formats: magazines, digital comics and/or webcomics, books, fanzines. 

? Formalities and games with the language of comics. 

? The role of the author in Latin American comics. 

? Latin American comics and their relationship with other media (cinema, TV, theatre, etc.)

Articles of no more than 5,000 to 7,000 words shall be submitted by 15 June. The documents required for submission and the rules of the magazine can be found at https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/iila. 

The languages accepted are Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and English.

(1) Examples of this have included events such as "Viñetas serias", the "Congreso académico de historietas y cultura geek" or the "Congreso Universitario de Historietas - CUH" (Argentina); "Entreviñetas" and the "Festival Independiente de Cómic Colombiano - FICCO" (Colombia); Viñetas con altura (Bolivia); Dibujos que hablan (Chile); Jornadas Internacionais de Histórias em Quadrinhos (Brazil). It is also important to recognise sites, projects and collective exhibitions that focus on a specialised look at comics, such as Revista Kamandi, Grupo Rorschach or Grupo ECHA-Estudios y Crítica de la Historieta Argentina (Argentina); Altais comics and Revista Bang (Colombia); or the more transversal RING, Red de investigadores e investigadoras en narrativa gráfica en Latinoamérica (Network of graphic narrative researchers in Latin America).