Abstracts and applications!

Goodness! I'm workin' through the grad school application process slowly but surely, and the impending deadlines are looking more and more frightening every day.

In other news, I just submitted my very first abstract. I've never written one, and I'm a little afraid it shows, even though I used a format I found online. Hopefully it'll go over well! The conference I submitted to is called ImageSexT, and it's being hosted by the University of Florida, one of the schools I'm in the process of applying to. Since in a year or so I will be writing abstracts just like this for review when I'm in grad, I figured even if they aren't keen on accepting undergraduate submissions, I'd toss in my hand for practice, and good practice it's definately been.

My proposal is below.

HOW TO DRAW THE (DC AND) MARVEL WAY:
How Changes in Representation of Female Bodies and Attitudes are Changing "Superheroine Chic"

This article strives to engage and analyze the changing expectations about women and girls in mainstream superhero serials in two parts. It defines the genre’s once-homogenous method of representing women as “Superheroine Chic,” and goes on to describe the way in which DC and Marvel both subvert and reaffirm that method. Its focus in the primary half lies in representational progress made by both companies, specifically with regards to the portrayal of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl and Oracle and of Gertrude Yorkes as Arsenic and Heroine. Issues of body type, body dysphoria, disability, and empowerment are central to the first section. Secondarily it deals with recent regressions made during the same period, especially with regards to the Black Canary and Heroes for Hire’s Misty Knight. Exploitation, visual and textual contradictions regarding women in positions of powerful- and powerlessness, and the effects that both progressive and regressive methods of representation have on how the characters are received by fans drive the latter portion of the essay. Dealing with internet-based fan communities, official Marvel and DC drawing guides, and the comics themselves as primary sources, it endeavors to show that, despite the common stance that comic book readers expect their heroines to fit a certain visual type, there is not only room but demand for heroines that push the boundaries of “Superheroine Chic”.

Here goes nothin', right?