Here at UEA Library, we are proud to support the excellent research that takes place at our institution. Which is why we are thrilled to have our very own Research Display on Floor 0. 

Our current display: I Was Drawn This Gay by American Studies student Cassia-Hayward Fitch focuses on how serial queer newspaper comic strips build active communities of readers. It features works from Howard Cruse’s Wendel (1983-1989) and Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For (1983-2008).

You can join us to celebrate and discover the display at our event on Floor 0 of the Library, February 4th, 16:30-17:30. Book your place by confirming your attendance.

But first – we’ve spoken to Cassia herself about the display! Read on to find out more. 

What inspired you to do this research?

My PhD research is specifically a continuation of my Master’s thesis, which I wrote on Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For. After I completed this work, I realized that there was so much more to say about the strip that had yet to be written. In the feedback I received for my thesis, my examiner suggested that it would have been interesting had I compared Bechdel’s work with Howard Cruse’s Wendel, with which Dykes holds many similarities. Inspired by this feedback and the passion I had found for writing about Dykes to Watch Out For, I began to draft a PhD proposal, which I sent off a few months after completing my MA.

More broadly, the threads that converged to form my PhD thesis extend back to my undergrad; specifically, I was being taught to examine only the formalistic properties of the texts and ignore their reception. However, I have always been an avid reader who has used queer literature to connect to my sexuality and a larger sense of queer community, and I knew that I wasn’t alone in this from my experience in online bookish communities. I therefore became interested in focusing on the reception of queer texts, especially in regard to their community-forming properties, and serialized newspaper comics seemed an obvious choice for analysis since their publication style encourages readers to communicate around the texts.

@uealibrary I Was Drawn This Gay: Queer Community Activisim in the Serial Comics of Alison Bechel and Howard Cruse. Come and view our latest research display on Floor 0 from Cassia Hayward-Fitch, an American Studies PhD student at UEA. #ResearchDisplay #QueerComics #UEALibrary #NorwichUEA @University of East Anglia-UEA ♬ Hinoki Wood - Gia Margaret

 

What would you like people to take away from your display? 

I would like people to take away from my display that comics are a much wider category than what is often represented in popular media. I think many of us have negative preconceived notions about comics and their readers; we either see them as a source of childhood reading or as written only for nerdy men. However, comics are much broader than only superhero texts, and similarly, there are comics that will appeal to readers of different ages, genders, and levels of “nerdiness”. Whatever your reading tastes, I guarantee that there will be a comic/manga/graphic novel that will appeal to you!

Why did you want to partner with the Library for your display? 

I am a passionate advocate for accessibility within academic research, and something I’ve struggled with throughout my PhD is that academic writing is so inaccessible — it is often behind paywalls and written using very specific language and a style that discourages casual reading. Especially when my research focuses on how a marginalized community engages with a type of literature often praised for its accessibility, presenting this research only in the inaccessible style of academic writing seems not only a shame but also immoral, as I believe my research should benefit first and foremost the community about whom I am writing. I have long been a massive fan of the work done by libraries in making literature more accessible, and last April I worked with UEA Library to create a book display for autism awareness month. Therefore, when I saw that the Library was beginning a new initiative to showcase PhD research, I jumped at the chance!

What have you gotten out of having your research displayed? 

It has been a pleasure working with the Library on my research display. I have been collecting queer comics for several years before even beginning my PhD, but up to now, this has always been a solitary pursuit. When I was doing my Master’s at UCL, I entered a book collection competition hosted by their library to encourage amateur book collectors, with the winner getting to display their collection in the library. Though I was a runner-up, so did not get this opportunity, this did not deter me. In working with the UEA Library, I feel I have completed this goal; in fact, the image on the flyers for my display is the photo I took for that competition five years ago! Many of the books in my display are rare (and most are older than I am), so I hope that putting them on display will allow an audience to see this body of work that would not otherwise know it existed, and that this in turn will encourage people to search for what else might be out there.

What is next for your research?

I am approaching the end of my PhD and hope to submit it in the next month. I would love to turn my research into a book and also write more journal articles in this area. I am also thinking about how to develop my thesis topic into future research. I plan on expanding my focus beyond the American comics I write about in my PhD by exploring British and francophone works, and I also want to expand my research on newspaper comics into the present day by exploring online queer comics communities.

Are you a PhD student or early career researcher at UEA interested in displaying your work with the Library? Contact Liz Clarke for more information: e.clarke@uea.ac.uk