Comics, Activism, Feminisms explores from both historical and contemporary perspectives how comic art, activism, and feminisms are intertwined, and how comic art itself can be a form of activism.
Feminist comic art emerged with the second-wave feminist movements. Today, there are comics connected to social activist movements working for change in a variety of areas. Comics artists often respond quickly to political events, making comics on topical issues that take a critical or satirical stance and highlighting the need for change. Comic art can point to problems, present alternatives, and give hope.
Comics artists from all parts of the world engage issues pertaining to feminisms and LGBTQIA+ issues, war and political conflict, climate crisis, the global migrant and refugee situation, and other societal problems. The chapters of this anthology illuminate the aesthetic and thematic aspects of comics, activism, and feminisms globally. Particular attention is given to the work of comics collectives, where Do-it-Ourselves is a strategy among activism-oriented artists, which use a great variety of media, such as fanzines, albums, webcomics, and exhibitions to communicate and disseminate activist comic art.
Comics, Activism, Feminisms is an essential anthology for scholars and students of comics studies, literary studies, art history, media studies, and gender studies.
Table of contents Chapter 1: Introduction Anna Nordenstam, Margareta Wallin Wictorin, and Kristy Beers Fägersten Part I: Activism in comics Chapter 2: The affective grammar of comics as activism: Performativity and desire in feminism as a politics of hope, Mia Liinason Chapter 3: Comics, feminism and the Internet, a dangerous affaire?, Gaëlle Kovaliv Chapter 4: The motivating power of feminist comics in modern Ukrainian society, Iryna Pinich & Kristy Beers Fägersten Chapter 5: Queer every week: Ilana Zeffren’s Urban Tails, Kevin Haworth Chapter 6: A study in black and white. Colour change and gender fluidity in George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, Daniela Kaufmann Chapter 7: Becoming an activist in the 1970s – Tandem artists Gunna Grähs & Eva Lindström: Pioneers of Swedish feminist comics, Kristina Mejhammar Chapter 8: Comics as art: Directly drawing on the wall in the museological context, Meichen Lu Part II: Comics as political space Chapter 9: Foregrounding the background: Space and place in feminist comics, Rebecca Scherr Chapter 10: Imagining a world beyond binaries – Feminist utopianism and the activist potential of webcomics, Leena Romu Chapter 11: Daring to draw a different world: Feminist utopias/dystopias in American women’s comix from the 1970s, Małgorzata Olsza Chapter 12: The House of Paper. Body, memory, and interior in the work of Italian women graphic novel authors, Linda Bertelli & Virginia Tonfoni Chapter 13: The transfer of French feminist comics approaches to a Swedish context. The case of Pénélope Bagieu, Ylva Lindberg, & Sandra Riomar Part III: Comics collectives Chapter 14: Comics and community in climate and gender justice activism, Nicola Streeten Chapter 15: Distant Connections: Connecting to the public through a zine on the gendered pandemic, Renée B. Adams Chapter 16: Moments of wonder and armies of care: Comics anthology and its activist implications in a non-Western context, Nafiseh Mousavi Chapter 17: Personal stories, knowledge, materials, and people: The practical entanglements of activism bringing together migrants and comics, Ralf Kauranen Chapter 18: Getting organised. Comics, communality, and care, Katharina Serles
Anna Nordenstam is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Gothenburg. Kristy Beers Fägersten is Professor of English Linguistics at Södertörn University. Margareta Wallin Wictorin is Reader in Art History and Visual Studies affiliated with Karlstad University.
