FRE 351 - A Genre for Gender: Québec Comics

From rebellious feminist zines to queer coming-of-age stories and biting satire, la bande dessinée has become a powerful space for rethinking gender and sexuality. Beginning with its Franco-Belgian roots, this course focuses on the vibrant Québec comics scene to explore how artists use image and text to challenge stereotypes, resist oppression, and imagine new possibilities for identity and community. Students will gain tools for both visual and textual analysis while engaging with feminist and queer theory, cultural history, and the politics of language. We will examine how creators represent gender identities and sexual orientations, and how their work reimagines the world through aesthetic innovation and critical storytelling. By working across form and content, text and context, the course develops a theoretical framework at the intersection of Comics and Gender Studies. Students will practice close reading and visual interpretation, articulate their responses with clarity and nuance, and consider how Québec’s linguistic diversity-from regional idioms to experimental registers-shapes meaning and cultural expression. 

Satisfies French and Francophone Studies major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Gender and Sexuality Studies major requirement.
Satisfies Film and Media Studies minor requirement.
Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing and Rhetoric requirement.
Satisfies Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
FRE 220