Department of English

Are lesbians essentially the same as everyone else or are they fundamentally different? Cartoonist Alison Bechdel poses this question in the introduction to The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, a collection of the comics series that appeared in independent newspapers weekly from 1983 to 2008. Fed up with the impossibility of an answer, Bechdel’s avatar tosses the book at us declaring, “You decide.” The over 500 pages of Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF) offer a treasure trove of queer history as they detail the rich and ever-changing world of Mo—a 20-something lesbian living in a college town in the earliest spreads—and her friends as they navigate love, work, and questions of identity with Bechdel’s signature sense of humor and attention to the details of everyday life. Although Bechdel became a household name in the 2000s for her graphic memoirs Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, this earlier work remains somewhat in the closet—beloved by its fans, but far less studied or taught in literature courses. This course asks what DTWOF might teach us that is distinct from Bechdel’s more famous work (which we will also read together). We will examine the comics through multiple critical and theoretical lenses, paying specific attention to the historically concurrent emergence of queer studies, a field oriented around this very question of sexual difference (or sameness). We will explore how Bechdel’s comic negotiates the ever-changing relationship between gender and sexuality from the lesbian-feminist 1980s to the queer 90s and into the rise of trans studies in the last 20 years.

This course introduces students to the foundational texts and ideas of queer and trans studies as well as the vocabulary of comics and the art of thinking critically about the dynamic relationship between image and text. Assignments will include exercises in cartooning (no artistic know-how necessary!), in-class critical writing, and a final research-based creative project. No previous experience in reading or producing comics is required.