The Comics and Culture Section was created in 2021 to foster conversations on comics and cartooning in folklore studies through study, application, and promotion. The section explores possibilities for what comics as a medium can offer folklore as a discipline, and what folklore studies can offer cartooning.
Section members engage in work that explores comics and cartooning:
- As sources of ethnographic data and experience
- As platforms for adapting folkloric materials
- As tools for ethnographic representation
- As mediums for storytelling
- As occupational and social practices
- As forms of expressive culture
To support these efforts the section:
- Sponsors panels at AFS meetings each year that explores intersections between comics and folklore studies.
- Works toward interdisciplinary engagement around comics, folklore, and ethnography by building connections to colleagues in other fields, such as cartoonists, anthropologists, historians, and others engaged in the creation, use, or study of comics and cartooning.
- Encourages section member participation in conferences and events beyond AFS
- Hosts informal comics and cartooning related events and gatherings at AFS meetings
- Plans toward publishing an annual mini-comic/zine.
Section conveners: Erin Bahl and Andy Kolovos
Contact the section conveners at [email protected]
Get Involved
Sign in to the AFS Member Portal to join the section and ensure you’re receiving section communications. All of your section involvement can be managed under My Info.