The UVM CBR Lab was created in 2024 as a campus-wide initiative to promote innovation, fun, and growth among researchers by exploring the ways the comics medium can be used in all stages of our inquiries, including data generation, analysis, and dissemination.

We are open to faculty, staff, graduate students, undergraduates, and post-docs across academic disciplines and colleges. Community members who share our interest are also welcome to join us. The lab offers regular drop-in-and-draw sessions, workshops, lectures, professional development opportunities, and a “petting zoo,” which is a double-decker rolling bag full of all manner of comics supplies. We also provide support for student projects, an independent study option for undergraduates and graduate students, and advising to scholars who seek to incorporate arts-based research techniques and illustrations in their work.

CBR can be time-consuming and isolating work, and is often devalued in the logocentric domain of academic communication. Building a supportive community is an important step to legitimating and realizing the potential of CBR to reshape research processes and outcomes.

The Lab is coordinated by Luis Vivanco, Professor of Anthropology, with the support of Prudence Doherty of the Jack and Shirley Silver Special Collections Library.

Get in touch: lvivanco@uvm.edu