[Comicsstudiessociety] CSS Executive Board response to recent events

[Langsdale, Samantha]

Dear CSS Listserv Members,

Today, the CSS Executive Board sent the attached letter to the University of Florida regarding recent events on the Comix-Scholars-L listserv. The full text can also be read below.


Dr. Samantha Langsdale

CSS Social Strategist


We are writing to you on behalf of the Executive Board of the Comics Studies Society (CSS) about recent events on the COMIX-SCHOLARS-L listserv hosted by the Department of English. The CSS “celebrates and seeks to foster diversity throughout the field of Comics Studies, including diversity in scholarly discipline, career position, job niche, and cultural and personal identity. We are serious about helping this field grow.” Recent events originating with posts to the listserv have forcefully reminded us of this commitment, and we aim to carry that lesson forward. The CSS Executive Board therefore confirms and celebrates the centrality of diversity to the mission of Comics Studies, and we register our opposition to divisive policies and rhetoric that threaten to tear at academia as a diverse, pluralistic, accepting, and affirming place.
In the wake of a recent series of posts (August 28-30, 2020) on the University of Florida COMIX-SCHOLARS-L listserv stemming from a private exchange that was made public, the CSS Executive Board would like to express our sincere dismay and disappointment that this truly egregious thread has negatively affected the two female scholars of color named within it and over the negative ramifications to the greater comics community. Unfortunately, we regret to point out that this racist, sexist and misogynistic rhetoric is not unique to this recent post on the listserv. In the past few years, posts to the comix-scholars listserv have on more than one occasion veered into the territory of defamatory and unprofessional behavior towards comics scholars who are BIPOC, women, and/or students.
Per your website, the COMIX-SCHOLARS-L list is meant to be a “place to debate theoretical and historical issues; to post course syllabi and assignments; to call attention to potentially useful scholarship and other resources; and to post calls for submissions for books, journals, and conferences.” Unfortunately, this has not been and continues to not be the case. Thus, as a concerned comics organization within the field of comics studies, we are reaching out to propose some options for your consideration as you move forward with this listserv.
First and foremost, we urge you to consider a reformulation of the listserv that is moderated by at least one tenured faculty member, not a graduate student in your program who is forced to potentially censure senior scholars or other influential community members as a graduate student—this carries a great deal of professional risk to graduate students and places them in a vulnerable position. We also strongly recommend that your webpage be updated and include a clear code of conduct stipulated upfront, with a process for list members to register concerns and have them addressed and remedied. If this is helpful, we would like to point you to our own Code of Conduct: http://comicssociety.org/documents/CodeofConduct_April2020.pdf<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcomicssociety.org%2Fdocuments%2FCodeofConduct_April2020.pdf%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0xufELfU3e4wXzY96NmiXG7WWLd79iRuCWRtLqcz4IQ6VAmJMDr5GhHmA&h=AT2eTS8ZzTu3tf-aqM7PEdMd2EeT-wLJw7y11InbgYa-y7DSsX4ql7QpbiTpd6pVWKhPbBtp86f8a2xUcsYxKqtsDN7q6S5Vf8FDH-83eenLSZwXaVnc_s8qWvF4Jx5rpEJIkQ&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2Rwyns8-QEpTZ0vj-VDp-xagItplEvprk_K4wK5yMJuJSC555L9tQN76qLJvS16sN99I00o_R4ebKSVAtJkCJ044bcdtVsbIItjgGjew4eE3WleqfSN6ixASuF6Vk31NjrDwKiHYDGRYHdsqE7A4UyI-Os-fYQjT-tvTDpzxEGiOkqIWRVKl9LxOJnxw>.
As a second alternative, we urge you to give some careful thought as to whether the best next step could be the dissolution of the listserv so as to not further injure scholars and the greater comics community. We want to emphasize that the listserv is a public space, one in which many scholars of marginal identities feel uncomfortable or unwanted and have consequently removed themselves from, and that discussions initiated there often continue on social media and in other venues, such that it occupies a central role in how our field is constructed and perceived.
It is imperative that a resolution is found soon before any more careers of scholars of color, scholars of marginalised genders, and/or junior scholars are damaged by the persistent white male toxicity that has taken root on this listserv. We are also concerned that the role of responding to, and attempting to regulate, this negative climate, has fallen to a female graduate student. We call on the Department and the University to review and remedy this situation immediately.
Respectfully submitted,
On Behalf of the Executive Board of the Comics Studies Society executiveboard at comicssociety.org
Matthew J. Smith, President
Candida Rifkind, Immediate Past President
Brittany Tullis, First Vice President
Nhora Serrano, Treasurer
Qiana Whitted, Journal Editor
Andrew Kunka, Ombudsperson

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