New England is a comics hotbed, home of innovative creators, events, and organizations pushing the boundaries of sequential art. Scholars across the region have taken notice, developing coursework, library collections, and programming to explore this dynamic medium. Some have gone even further, integrating comics forms and practices into their scholarly research processes and communications, with the goal of presenting complex issues and systems with clarity and style.

Are you one of those scholar-creators? Are you looking for connections and professional development opportunities to advance that work? Or are you at a crossroads, looking to integrate more creative and arts-based practices into your research in the humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, we invite your application to join others in a two-day symposium and retreat to be held at the University of Vermont in Burlington on June 2-3, 2026.

Funded by a Community Collaborative Grant from the New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC), this event provides a rare opportunity to gather faculty and graduate students from across the NEHC community to explore the power and potential of Comics-Based Research. CBR is a field of practice that applies systematic arts-making, data visualization, and sequential narrative practices to research, in any discipline and in all forms of scholarship.

This gathering is hosted at UVM by the Comics-Based Research Lab, Humanities Center, and Jack and Shirley Silver Special Collections Library. NEHC partners include the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of New Hampshire. Our community partners are the Applied Cartooning Lab at the Center for Cartoon Studies and Vermont Folklife.

Questions? Email symposium coordinator Luis Vivanco (lvivanco@uvm.edu)