Call for Participants
‘Competence is exchanged for authority. Ultimately, the more authority the Expert has, the less competence he has, up to the point where his fund of competence is exhausted…’
-Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 1984 [1980], p. 7.
The Scottish Comics Unconference Meet-up will take place on Saturday 28th February 2015 in Glasgow, Scotland.
In The Practice of Everyday Life, De Certeau discusses “the Expert”. Once a specialist in his field, the Expert is someone who exchanges the power of his knowledge for authority in a wider discourse.
Comics scholars past and present have fought to be taken seriously in academic institutions, but what have we exchanged in order to gain this authority? Can we carve out a middle ground between the specialist and “the Expert”?
There is power in being ex-centric, uninitiated in the power constructs of the mainstream. David N. Wright invokes this power in his Graphixia post ‘We’re Punk, Not Junk’ when he talks about returning to comics’ disposable roots and reminding ourselves what is magic in the medium.
This Scottish Comics Unconference Meet-up is a first step in an attempt to redemocratize the field of comics study, open to any and all with an interest in critically engaging with the medium we study and love. There will be moderators facilitating discussion, not speakers lecturing to an audience. The agenda will be set by the participants, not by the organizers. One day where we can all be equal as specialists in our fields, and no one is an expert.
The first session of the day will see a vote on which topics, submitted by participants prior to the meet-up, will be discussed in break-out sessions.
If there’s something you’re particularly passionate about, let’s start planning!
We would like to start exploring in advance what kind of activities, session topics, tutorials, or workshops you would like to lead, or what kind of topics which you know little about, but on which you would like someone else to lead a session. (If you propose a tutorial, then you are specifically volunteering to (co-)facilitate – if you are the only one who knows how to teach your topic, and you don’t show up, people will be disappointed).
Please register your interest to attend using this form.
Feel free to leave comments on the posts on our blog as well to carry on conversations about what sort of content a session might have or to learn more about unconferences through our open planning document here.
If you’d like to know more about the unconference format, check out these links:
- How to(un)prepare for an unconference
- Characteristics of an unconference
To find out more about the Organising Committee, click here.
Follow us on Twitter @comicsunconf
