Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Spring 2025 - GSWS 321 B100

Special Topics in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (4)

Comics/Graphic Sex

Class Number: 3312

Delivery Method: Blended

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 6 – Apr 9, 2025: Thu, 2:30–4:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Prerequisites:

    15 units.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A specific theme within the field of gender, sexuality, and women's studies, not otherwise covered in depth in regularly scheduled courses, will be dealt with as occasion and demand warrant.

COURSE DETAILS:

From the newspaper funny pages to the graphic novel Fun Home, comics are a pervasive and popular art form read by audiences of all ages. The unique combination of text and image in comics provides a rich visual language for exploring the lived complexities of embodied experience and the larger social and political contexts that shape our identities. What might we learn about how social norms are produced and transformed through the stories portrayed in Marvel superhero comics, from the disability politics of the Hawkeye to the gender politics of Miss Marvel? How do the stark lines and sharp visual contrasts in Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir Persepolis add another dimension to her story about gender and religion in the context of the Iranian Revolution? And how might putting our own experiences into graphic form help us to think in more nuanced and unexpected ways about how formations of gender and sexuality are at play in our own lives? This course is designed to teach students how to read and interpret comics, how to analyze and theorize the play of gender and sexuality in graphic narratives – from superhero comics and manga to underground comix and graphic memoirs – and how to visually think, theorize, and communicate by creating our own drawings.

*Please be advised: While this course requires you to draw A LOT, it requires – and even encourages! – absolutely no prior artistic training, skill, or experience. The premise of the course is everyone can draw and there is no such thing as a bad drawing. Cartoonist Lynda Barry reminds us: judging our drawings gets in the way of seeing the original, unexpected, and exciting ideas that are really there. So, let’s start drawing and see what shows up!

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

For more detailed information please see the GSWS website: https://www.sfu.ca/gsws/undergraduate/courses/goals.html

Grading

  • Weekly low-stakes drawing exercises (6 points each x 10) 50%
  • Drawing Assignment #1 (1-page Comic Strip) 10%
  • Drawing Assignment #2 (2-page Graphic Story) 15%
  • Drawing Assignment #3 (4-page Zine, Graphic Narrative, or Comic) 25%

NOTES:

All assignments in this class will be hand-drawn. The course requires no prior artistic training, skill, or experience. All assignments will be evaluated based on the quality of effort, thought, and progress, not on the technical quality of the art.

*If you are unable to access or afford drawing supplies, please contact the professor. I do not want cost of supplies to inhibit any student’s ability to take the course.

 

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Required Supplies:

  • Composition Notebook (wide-rule, standard size, non-recycled paper)
  • Papermate Flair Pens (black, medium point)
  • Colored markers or crayons
  • Index Cards (4”x 6” index cards, blank on one side)
  • Blank Printer Paper (8.5” x 11”)

REQUIRED READING:

  • Sherine Hamdy and Coleman Nye, Lissa: A Story of Friendship, Medical Promise, and Revolution (2017, University of Toronto Press), e-book $15.96 at University of Toronto Press website
  • Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do (2017, Abrams), e-book $19 at Indigo
  • Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Sonny Assu, et al. This Place: 150 Years Retold (2019, Portage and Main)
  • Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze, 2016, The Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet
  • All other readings and course materials will be made available on canvas

REQUIRED READING NOTES:

Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating. Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the university community. Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the university. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION

Students with a faith background who may need accommodations during the term are encouraged to assess their needs as soon as possible and review the Multifaith religious accommodations website. The page outlines ways they begin working toward an accommodation and ensure solutions can be reached in a timely fashion.