Graphic Medicine Collection
a guide to the graphic medicine books and resources through UMass Amherst Libraries
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Graphic Medicine Titles about Gender, Sexuality, & Reproductive Health
Becoming Unbecoming by
This extraordinary graphic novel is a powerful denunciation of sexual violence against women. As seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old girl named Una, it takes place in northern England in 1977, as the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer of prostitutes, is on the loose and creating panic among the townspeople. As the police struggle in their clumsy attempts to find the killer, and the headlines in the local paper become more urgent, a once self-confident Una teaches herself to "lower her gaze" in order to deflect attention from boys. After she is "slut-shamed" at school for having birth control pills, Una herself is the subject of violent acts for which she comes to blame herself. But as the police finally catch up with and identify the killer, Una grapples with the patterns of behaviour that led her to believe she was to blame. Becoming Unbecoming combines various styles, press clippings, photo-based illustrations, and splashes of colour to convey young Una's sense of confusion and rage, as well as sobering statistics on sexual violence against women. The book is a no-holds-barred indictment of sexual violence against women and the shame and blame of its victims that also celebrates the empowerment of those able to gain control over their selves and their bodies.
Call Number: PN6737.U63 B43 2016ISBN: 9781551526539Publication Date: 2016-10-18
Embroideries by
From the best-selling author ofPersepoliscomes this gloriously entertaining and enlightening look into the sex lives of Iranian women.Embroideriesgathers together Marjane’s tough-talking grandmother, stoic mother, glamorous and eccentric aunt and their friends and neighbors for an afternoon of tea drinking and talking. Naturally, the subject turns to love, sex and the vagaries of men. As the afternoon progresses, these vibrant women share their secrets, their regrets and their often outrageous stories about, among other things, how to fake one’s virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery and how to delight in being a mistress. By turns revealing and hilarious, these are stories about the lengths to which some women will go to find a man, keep a man or, most importantly, keep up appearances. Full of surprises, this introduction to the private lives of some fascinating women, whose life stories and lovers and will strike us as at once deeply familiar and profoundly different from our own, is sure to bring smiles of recognition to the faces of women everywhere–and to teach us all a thing or two. From the Hardcover edition.
Call Number: PN6747.S245 E42 2005ISBN: 9780375423055Publication Date: 2005-04-19
Fun Home by
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year * National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Winner of the Stonewall Book Award * Double finalist for the Lambda Book Award Alison Bechdel's groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir that charts her fraught relationship with her late father. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the "Fun Home." It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve. In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail.
Call Number: PN6727.B3757 Z46 2006ISBN: 9780618871711Publication Date: 2007-06-05
Gender Is Really Strange by
What does it mean to be trans? Non-Binary? Gender Expansive? What parts of gender come from society? What parts come from within? How much is biology, and how much is socialization? Part of the Really Strange series, this science-based graphic medicine comic addresses these questions and more, revealing the inherent messiness of gender identity and sex. A mysterious amalgam of biology and society, inherently sensed, yet societally-defined, the complexity of gender is revealed through examining neuroscience, biology, hormones, mental health, behaviour and how much of gender comes from society. Exploring theories, thinkers, terminology, history and gender cultures around the world and across different religions, this easy-to-understand and engaging book will help you to question perceived norms and engage critically with your own gender identity. Get ready to break down the binary B.S. and celebrate gender in all its messy glory!
Call Number: HQ18.55 .G64 2024ISBN: 9781839975127Publication Date: 2023-10-19
Gender Queer: a Memoir by
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall -- Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. "It's also a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand." -- SLJ (starred review)
Call Number: HQ77.8.K628 A3 2020ISBN: 9781549304002Publication Date: 2019-05-28
Go with the Flow by
High school students embark on a crash course of friendship, female empowerment, and women's health issues in Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann's graphic novel Go With the Flow. Good friends help you go with the flow. Best friends help you start a revolution. Sophomores Abby, Brit, Christine, and Sasha are fed up. Hazelton High never has enough tampons. Or pads. Or adults who will listen. Sick of an administration that puts football before female health, the girls confront a world that shrugs--or worse, squirms--at the thought of a menstruation revolution. They band together to make a change. It's no easy task, especially while grappling with everything from crushes to trig to JV track but they have each other's backs. That is, until one of the girls goes rogue, testing the limits of their friendship and pushing the friends to question the power of their own voices. Now they must learn to work together to raise each other up. But how to you stand your ground while raising bloody hell?
Call Number: PZ7.7.W548 Go 2020ISBN: 9781250305725Publication Date: 2020-01-14
Good Eggs by
In the tradition of the acclaimed graphic memoirs Fun Home and Persepolis, Phoebe Potts's Good Eggs is a funny, insightful, and deeply moving book about learning to appreciate what we have...even when we can't seem to get what we want. In Good Eggs, Phoebe's quest to conceive a baby forces her to come to terms with her lapsed Judaism, her aspirations as an artist, her neurotic family, and her depression--happily, all with the support of her true loving husband. Potts's clever, charming, and wonderfully detailed graphic novel evokes the intimacy of Alison Bechdel and the humor of New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast.
Call Number: PN6727.P68 G66 2010ISBN: 9780061711466Publication Date: 2010-09-21
Graphic Reproduction by
This comics anthology delves deeply into the messy and often taboo subject of human reproduction. Featuring work by luminaries such as Carol Tyler, Alison Bechdel, and Joyce Farmer, Graphic Reproduction is an illustrated challenge to dominant cultural narratives about conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. The comics here expose the contradictions, complexities, and confluences around diverse individual experiences of the entire reproductive process, from trying to conceive to child loss and childbirth. Jenell Johnson's introduction situates comics about reproduction within the growing field of graphic medicine and reveals how they provide a discursive forum in which concepts can be explored and presented as uncertainties rather than as part of a prescribed or expected narrative. Through comics such as Lyn Chevley's groundbreaking "Abortion Eve," Bethany Doane's "Pushing Back: A Home Birth Story," Leah Hayes's "Not Funny Ha-Ha," and "Losing Thomas & Ella: A Father's Story," by Marcus B. Weaver-Hightower, the collection explores a myriad of reproductive experiences and perspectives. The result is a provocative, multifaceted portrait of one of the most basic and complicated of all human experiences, one that can be hilarious and heartbreaking. Featuring work by well-known comics artists as well as exciting new voices, this incisive collection is an important and timely resource for understanding how reproduction intersects with sociocultural issues. The afterword and a section of discussion exercises and questions make it a perfect teaching tool.
Call Number: RG525 .G73 2018ISBN: 9780271080949Publication Date: 2018-05-02
How to have feminist sex : a fairly graphic guide by Call Number: HQ56 .P47 2020ISBN: 9780141990408Publication Date: 2020
Love and Rockets by
Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 reboots the ongoing "Love andRockets" comic to a fat, all-new annual graphic-novel length package that willbe available in bookstores. Jaime launches the new format with a superhero yarn:Penny Century has acquired superpowers, but is half-mad with grief and rampagingthrough the galaxy. A motley group of superheroes assemble to try to stop her.Only the first half of the saga, it combines Jaime's razor-sharpcharacterization and superlative art with wildly inventive, Kirby-style action.Gilbert Hernandez has these stories: "Tamanny" (rookie cop vs. demonic drugusers); "Papa" (a turn-of-the-century story involving a traveling businessman);"The New Adventures of Duke and Sammy" (superpowered Martin and Lewis impostorsin outer space); "The Tender Room" (Into the Wild as re-imagined byBeto); "Chiro el Indio" (written by third brother Mario Hernandez); and "NeverSay Never" (a kangaroo gets lucky in Las Vegas).
Call Number: PN6727.H48 L68 2008ISBN: 9781560979517Publication Date: 2008-09-17
Pregnant Butch by
First pregnancy can be a fraught, uncomfortable experience for any woman, but for resolutely butch lesbian Teek Thomasson, it is exceptionally challenging. Teek identifies as a masculine woman in a world bent on associating pregnancy with a cult of uber-femininity. Teek wonders, "Can butches even get pregnant?" Of course, as she and her pragmatic femme girlfriend Vee discover, they can. But what happens when they do? Written and illustrated by A.K. Summers, and based on her own pregnancy, Pregnant Butch strives to depict this increasingly common, but still underrepresented experience of queer pregnancy with humor and complexity--from the question of whether suspenders count as legitimate maternity wear to the strains created by different views of pregnancy within a couple and finally to a culturally critical and compassionate interrogation of gender in pregnancy. Offering smart, ambitious art, this graphic memoir is a must-read for would-be pregnant butches and anyone interested in the intersection of birth and gender, as well as a perfect queer baby shower gift and conversation starter for those who always assumed they "got" being pregnant.
Call Number: HQ75.53 .S86 2014ISBN: 9781593765408Publication Date: 2014-03-18
Queer: a Graphic History by
'Queer: A Graphic History Could Totally Change the Way You Think About Sex and Gender' Vice Activist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel. From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged. Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of what's 'normal' - Alfred Kinsey's view of sexuality as a spectrum, Judith Butler's view of gendered behaviour as a performance, the play Wicked, or moments in Casino Royale when we're invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media. Presented in a brilliantly engaging and witty style, this is a unique portrait of the universe of queer thinking.
Call Number: HQ76.25 .B37 2016ISBN: 9781785780714Publication Date: 2016-11-15
A Quick and Easy Guide to Asexuality by
"An engaging and essential handbook for anyone interested in gaining insight into an oft-misunderstood community." -- Library Journal This book is for anyone who wants to learn about asexuality, and for Ace people themselves, to validate their experiences. 2023 YALSA Great Graphic Novel for Teens 2023 ALA Rainbow Booklist Selection 2022 Chicago Public Library Best Book Asexuality is often called The Invisible Orientation. You don't learn about it in school, you don't hear "ace" on television. So, it's kinda hard to be ace in a society so steeped in sex that no one knows you exist. Too many young people grow up believing that their lack of sexual desire means they are broken - so writer Molly Muldoon and cartoonist Will Hernandez, both in the ace community, are here to shed light on society's misconceptions of asexuality and what being ace is really like. This book is for anyone who wants to learn about asexuality, and for Ace people themselves, to validate their experiences. Asexuality is a real identity and it's time the world recognizes it. Here's to being invisible no more!
Call Number: HQ73 .M653 2022ISBN: 9781620108598Publication Date: 2022-03-29
Facts of Life by
In the 1970s, best friends Polly and April collect hazy knowledge about the "facts of life"--sex, reproduction, and gender norms--through the gossip of older girls, magazines and books, and the everyday behavior of their families and teachers. What they learn reinforces their assumption that they will grow up to become mothers. As the years pass, they each choose paths that they believe will enable them to "have it all." April's dreams of motherhood come true before too long, but as Polly enthusiastically builds a career, her desire and hope to start a family become less firmly ingrained. Her struggles with chronic illness also have an effect on her choices and relationships, and she wonders whether motherhood will be in the cards for her at all. Soon she meets Jack, and together they start a fraught journey, first debating whether parenthood is right for them and then facing the heartbreak of repeated miscarriages and the effects of illness on their ability to have a child. Through it all, Polly is forced to reexamine what family can mean in a society that so often associates family--and womanhood--with children. Beautifully drawn and poignantly honest, The Facts of Life is a funny, sometimes painful graphic memoir that explores what it takes to be a woman, a partner, and a mother . . . or not.
Call Number: RG201 .K57 2017ISBN: 9780271078465Publication Date: 2017-03-15
The Times I Knew I Was Gay by
A charming, highly relatable graphic memoir about one woman's coming out and coming of age that "brims with hope, and the joy that arises when one is finally ready to step out into the world" (OprahMag.com). Ellie always had questions about who she was and how she fit in. As a girl, she wore black, obsessed over Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and found dating boys much more confusing than many of her friends did. As she grew older, so did her fears and a deep sense of unbelonging. From her first communion to her first girlfriend via a swathe of self-denial, awkward encounters, and everyday courage, Ellie offers a fresh and funny self-portrait of a young woman becoming herself. This "heartwarming, delightful memoir of self-discovery" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) reminds us that people sometimes come out not just once but again and again; that identity is not necessarily about falling in love with others, but about coming to terms with oneself. Full of vitality and humor, The Times I Knew I Was Gay will ring true for anyone who has taken the time to discover who they truly are.
Call Number: PN6737.C74 T56 2021ISBN: 9781982147112Publication Date: 2021-10-05
Woman Rebel by
Peter Bagge's Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story is a dazzling and accessible biography of the social and political maverick, jam-packed with fact and fun. In his signature cartoony, rubbery style, Bagge presents the life of the birth-control activist, educator, nurse, mother, and protofeminist from her birth in the late nineteenth century to her death after the invention of the birth control pill. Balancing humor and respect, Bagge makes Sanger whole and human, showing how her flaws fueled her fiery activism just as much as her compassionate nature did. Sanger's life takes on a whole new vivacity as Bagge creates a fast-paced portrait of a trailblazer whose legacy as the founder of Planned Parenthood is still incredibly relevant, important, and inspiring.
Call Number: HQ764.S3 B34 2013ISBN: 9781770461260Publication Date: 2013-10-15
