Queers and Comics Poster
This poster advertises the Queers and Comics conference that was held by CLAGS at the CUNY Graduate Center on May 7th and 8th, 2015. Bringing together over 100 queer comic book artists and scholars from around the globe, the conference included panels, workshops, presentations and displays of queer comic book art. Topics of discussion included “Queers in Other Worlds,” “Queers Working in Mainstream Comics,” and “Queer Memoir.” The Keynote speakers were Howard Cruse, whose comic Wendel is widely considered to be the first gay comic strip to appear in mainstream media, and Alyson Bechdel, who was well known for her early representation of lesbian life in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For and who achieved mainstream fame when her graphic memoir Fun Home was turned into a Tony award-winning Broadway musical. A second Queers and Comics event was held by the California College of the Arts in 2017.
Although formally instituted at the CUNY Graduate Center in 1991, CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies was first conceived 5 years earlier by Martin, Duberman, one of the first historians to embrace the, then infantile, field of Queer Studies. Duberman sensed the need for a formal center devoted to queer research. As the first university-based center for LGBTQ research, CLAGS continues to demonstrate its dedication to advancing Queer Studies, by hosting public events showcasing queer research and sponsoring fellowships to support queer scholars. Among its many notable contributions, CLAGS annually puts on at least one major conference and holds the Kessler Award Lecture every fall to celebrate a queer scholar who has made a notable contribution to the field of queer studies.
Although formally instituted at the CUNY Graduate Center in 1991, CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies was first conceived 5 years earlier by Martin, Duberman, one of the first historians to embrace the, then infantile, field of Queer Studies. Duberman sensed the need for a formal center devoted to queer research. As the first university-based center for LGBTQ research, CLAGS continues to demonstrate its dedication to advancing Queer Studies, by hosting public events showcasing queer research and sponsoring fellowships to support queer scholars. Among its many notable contributions, CLAGS annually puts on at least one major conference and holds the Kessler Award Lecture every fall to celebrate a queer scholar who has made a notable contribution to the field of queer studies.
