Queer: A Graphic History

Sexuality and Gender for Mental Health Professionals

A Practical Guide

Christina Richards, Meg Barker

Questions of sexuality and gender affect everyone and therefore have an inevitable relevance in the consulting room. Yet with interpretations and manifestations of both varying greatly from person to person, understanding the inherent complexities of sexuality and gender can be a daunting task for the health professional. Breaking down these complexities this practical guide familiarises the reader with all of the common and many of the less common sexualities, genders and relationship forms, and explains experiences and issues relating to each. The book contains: -Explanations of various forms of sexuality, gender and relationship structures -Common concerns relating to specific groups -Key practises relating to specific groups -The treatment of specific groups in contemporary Western society -Details of some rules and ideals that are commonly found within specific groups -Suggestions for professional practice with these groups Ideal for all members of the multidisciplinary team, this accessible book is relevant to practitioners across theoretical backgrounds. Whether you are a trainee or qualified psychotherapist, counsellor, nurse, medic, psychiatrist, social worker or applied psychologist, this is a vital text for your professional practice. CHRISTINA RICHARDS is Senior Specialist Psychology Associate at the West London Mental Health NHS Trust (Charing Cross) Gender Identity Clinic. MEG BARKER is a senior lecturer in psychology at the Open University and a sex and relationship therapist.

The Psychology of Sex

Meg-John Barker

The Psychology of Sex takes you on a tour through the different ways that psychology helps us understand sex and sexuality.This new edition features material on evolving sexual identities, as well as sexuality and technology and how digital platforms shape sexual behaviours.

The Secrets of Enduring Love

How to make relationships last

Meg John Barker, Jacqui Gabb

The Secrets of Enduring Love focuses on what couples actually do to maintain, nurture and nourish their relationships. The reader will be taken on a journey through different ways of doing relationships, focusing on the key themes which came out of the research: everyday acts of kindness and appreciation; the importance of home; communication and conflict management; sex and intimacy; incorporating others into the relationship (children, pets, friends, hobbies); and telling your own love story. One of the key messages from the research is that different things work for different people, and at different times in the relationship. For this reason the book focuses on the differnt practices that we might bring into our own relationships, helping us to recognise the small things which we may be already doing but which ordinarily go by unnoticed, and offering a helping hand to find out what works best for us.

How to Understand Your Gender

A Practical Guide for Exploring Who You Are

Alex Iantaffi, Meg-John Barker

This helpful guide presents ways we can all better understand gender, and how people can change and express their gender identity. Considering biological and cultural understandings of gender, gender expression, and relationships and sexuality, this is an excellent starting point for anybody thinking about what gender means to them.

Hell Yeah Self-Care!

A Trauma-Informed Workbook

Meg-John Barker, Alex Iantaffi

Take a moment to pause... Breathe... And ask yourself, what does self-care mean to you? Times are very tough-in a world that pushes us to go faster, be the best, and get ahead of others, we often forget to focus on ourselves, leaving us with anxiety, anger, burnout, stress, and trauma. In this creative workbook and journal leading mental health pioneers, Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker, provide you with the tools to begin your self-care journey and develop sustainable self-care routines and rituals that work for you. Featuring a diverse range of experiential exercises, activities, and opportunities for reflection, while drawing upon a range of practices and approaches including systemic and existential therapies, Buddhist mindfulness, Pagan ritual, trauma-informed practice, intersectional feminism and more. This book explores self-care in all its forms and covers somatic self-care, plural selves, emotions and feelings, relationships, and care for others. Empowering, illuminating and written with authenticity and honesty throughout-this is a manual for everyone and will help you look after yourself on your path towards happiness and wellbeing.

Gender: A Graphic Guide

Meg-John Barker

'An outstanding work' - CN Lester, author of Trans Like Me Join the creators of Queer: A Graphic History (‘Could totally change the way you think about sex and gender’ VICE) on an illustrated journey of gender exploration. Is masculinity ‘toxic’? Why are public toilets such a political issue? How has feminism changed the available gender roles – and for whom? Why might we all benefit from challenging binary thinking about sex/gender? In this unique illustrated guide, Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele travel through our shifting understandings of gender across time and space – from ideas about masculinity and femininity, to non-binary and trans genders, to intersecting experiences of gender, race, sexuality, class, disability and more. Tackling current debates and tensions, which can divide communities and even cost lives, Barker and Scheele look to the past and the future to explore how we might all approach gender in more caring and celebratory ways.

The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part Three

Michael Dante DiMartino

When Asami is kidnapped, Korra sets out to the Spirit Wilds to find her. Now teeming with dark spirits influenced by the half spirit-half human Tokuga, the landscape is more dangerous than ever before. The two women must trust in each other and work together if they are to make it out alive. Their fate is revealed in this stunning, action-packed conclusion to The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars! Written by series co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino and drawn by Irene Koh (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Afrina and the Glass Coffin), with consultation by Bryan Konietzko, this is the official continuation of the beloved television series!

The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Library Edition

Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko

Written by series co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino and drawn by Irene Koh (Secret Origins: Batgirl, Afrina and the Glass Coffin) and with consultation by Bryan Konietzko, this is the official continuation of The Legend of Korra! Collects The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Parts One, Two, and Three. New beginnings for Korra and Asami! After a refreshing sojourn in the Spirit World, Korra and Asami return to Republic City but find nothing but political hijinks and human vs. spirit conflict! Pompous developer Wonyong Keum plans to turn the new spirit portal into an amusement park, potentially severing an already tumultuous connection with the spirits. At the city's edge, Zhu Li enlists everyone she can to aid the thousands of hungry and homeless evacuees who have relocated there. Meanwhile, the Triple Threats' ruthless new leader, Tokuga, is determined to unite the other triads under his rule, no matter the cost. In order to get through it all, Korra and Asami vow to look out for each other--but first, they've got to get better at being a team!

The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Omnibus

Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino

New beginnings for Korra and Asami! After a refreshing sojourn in the Spirit World, Korra and Asami return to Republic City but find nothing but political hijinks and human vs. spirit conflict! A developer plans to turn the new spirit portal into an amusement park, endangering relations with the spirits. At the city’s edge, Zhu Li enlists everyone she can to aid the evacuees who have relocated there. Meanwhile, the Triple Threats’ ruthless new leader, Tokuga, is determined to unite the other triads under his rule. In order to get through it all, Korra and Asami vow to look out for each other—but first, they’ve got to get better at being a team! Written by series co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino and drawn by Irene Koh (Secret Origins: Batgirl, Afrina and the Glass Coffin) and with consultation by Bryan Konietzko, this is the official continuation of The Legend of Korra! Collects The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Parts One, Two, and Three with an all-new cover by Irene Koh!

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert

With an Introduction by Roger Clark, University of Kent at Canterbury Castigated for offending against public decency, Madame Bovary has rarely failed to cause a storm. For Flaubert's contemporaries, the fascination came from the novelist's meticulous account of provincial matters. For the writer, subject matter was subordinate to his anguished quest for aesthetic perfection. For his twentieth-century successors the formal experiments that underpin Madame Bovary look forward to the innovations of contemporary fiction. Flaubert s protagonist in particular has never ceased to fascinate. Romantic heroine or middle-class neurotic, flawed wife and mother or passionate protester against the conventions of bourgeois society, simultaneously the subject of Flaubert s admiration and the butt of his irony - Emma Bovary remains one of the most enigmatic of fictional creations. Flaubert's meticulous approach to the craft of fiction, his portrayal of contemporary reality, his representation of an unforgettable cast of characters make Madame Bovary one of the major landmarks of modern fiction.

Blue Is the Warmest Color

Julie Maroh

A New York Times bestseller The original graphic novel adapted into the film Blue Is the Warmest Color, winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival; released in the US this fall by IFC Films/Sundance Selects In this tender, bittersweet, full-color graphic novel, a young woman named Clementine discovers herself and the elusive magic of love when she meets a confident blue-haired girl named Emma: a lesbian love story for the ages that bristles with the energy of youth and rebellion and the eternal light of desire. First published in France by Glénat, the book has won several awards, including the Audience Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, Europe's largest. The live-action, French-language film version of the book, entitled Blue Is the Warmest Color, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2013. Directed by director Abdellatif Kechiche and starring Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos, the film generated both wide praise and controversy. It will be released in the US through Sundance Selects/IFC Films. Julie Maroh is an author and illustrator originally from northern France.

The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story Expanded Edition

Vivek J. Tiwary

“If anyone was ‘The Fifth Beatle’ it was Brian.”–Paul McCartney The Fifth Beatle graphic novel recounts the untold true story of Brian Epstein-- the visionary manager who created Beatlemania and guided the Beatles from basement gigs to unprecedented international stardom. It's also an uplifting, inspirational human story about the struggle to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. This critically acclaimed and multiple award winning graphic novel has been added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives! This new softcover edition includes an expanded sketchbook and Beatles memorabilia section, with behind-the-scenes essays and insights from writer Vivek J. Tiwary, plus 25 pages of bonus art by Andrew Robinson and Kyle Baker!

Art History for Comics

Past, Present and Potential Futures

Ian Horton, Maggie Gray

This book looks at comics through the lens of Art History, examining the past influence of art-historical methodologies on comics scholarship to scope how they can be applied to Comics Studies in the present and future. It unearths how early comics scholars deployed art-historical approaches, including stylistic analysis, iconography, Cultural History and the social history of art, and proposes how such methodologies, updated in light of disciplinary developments within Art History, could be usefully adopted in the study of comics today. Through a series of indicative case studies of British and American comics like Eagle, The Mighty Thor, 2000AD, Escape and Heartbreak Hotel, it argues that art-historical methods better address overlooked aspects of visual and material form. Bringing Art History back into the interdisciplinary nexus of comics scholarship raises some fundamental questions about the categories, frameworks and values underlying contemporary Comics Studies.

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies

Frederick Luis Aldama

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies is a comprehensive, global, and interdisciplinary examination of the essential relationship between Gender, Sexuality, Comics, and Graphic Novels. A diverse range of international and interdisciplinary scholars take a closer look at how gender and sexuality have been essential in the evolution of comics, and how gender and sexuality in comics demand that we re-frame and re-view comics history. Chapters cover a wide array of intersectional topics including Queer Underground and Alternative comics, Feminist Autobiography, re-drawing disability, Latina testimony, and re-evaluating the critical whiteness and masculinity of superheroes in this first truly global reference text to gender and sexuality in comics. Comics have always been an important place for the radical exploration of feminist and non-binary sexualities and identities, and the growth of non-normative comic book traditions as a field of inquiry makes this an essential text for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers studying Comics Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Literary Studies, and Cultural Studies.

The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature

Jodie Medd

The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature examines literary representations of lesbian sexuality, identities, and communities, from the medieval period to the present. In addition to providing a helpful orientation to key literary-historical periods, critical concepts, theoretical debates and literary genres, this Companion considers the work of such well-known authors as Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Alison Bechdel and Sarah Waters. Written by a host of leading critics and covering subjects as diverse as lesbian desire in the long eighteenth century and same-sex love in a postcolonial context, this Companion delivers insight into the variety of traditions that have shaped the present landscape of lesbian literature.

The Social Genres of Comics

Impact and Innovation of Comics in Social Sciences

Veronica Moretti, Francesco Della Puppa

This book analyzes social research and genres of comics from cross-cultural perspectives. It disentangles the impact of comics in understanding social, cultural and political issues and considers the challenges they may raise from an ethical point of view. In nine case studies focused on topics such as migration, science and technology innovation, urban sociology and criminology, the book aims to answer the following questions: How can the comic medium help understand research’s narratives? To what extent can comics can be incorporated within traditional social research steps? What body of knowledge is being created by research-based comics? How can they represent social class without eliminating it or reproducing its stereotypes and how they deconstruct, without removing the “color line” the cultural difference or the naturalization of gender corporality? What are the barriers (theoretical and methodological) that researchers might encounter using comics to communicate sensitive topics? What are the main ethical considerations researchers must consider? While, at first glance, comics-based research seems to be tied mostly to Sociology, Anthropology and Geography, it also is relevant to a host of other disciplines including cultural studies, feminist studies, environmental studies, disability studies, science and technology studies, critical race studies, queer studies and animal studies. This book will also facilitate international and interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers with an interest in exploring the utility and limitations of the graphic medium.

Key Terms in Comics Studies

Erin La Cour, Simon Grennan, Rik Spanjers

Key Terms in Comics Studies is a glossary of over 300 terms and critical concepts currently used in the Anglophone academic study of comics, including those from other languages that are currently adopted and used in English. Written by nearly 100 international and contemporary experts from the field, the entries are succinctly defined, exemplified, and referenced. The entries are 250 words or fewer, placed in alphabetical order, and explicitly cross-referenced to others in the book. Key Terms in Comics Studies is an invaluable tool for both students and established researchers alike.

Queer Worldmaking in Art Therapy

Theory and Praxis

Zachary D. Van Den Berg

This book actively challenges the constraints imposed by dominant cis-heteronormative paradigms and advocates for a dynamic and fluid understanding of identity and healing, framing social justice and liberation as indispensable components of therapeutic practice. Each chapter investigates queer and trans epistemologies—ways of knowing, feeling, and imagining—that destabilize conventional therapeutic approaches. It provides adaptive and practical strategies for incorporating queer worldmaking into art therapy, thereby transforming therapeutic environments to be more inclusive, affirming, and just. Through detailed case studies and real-world applications, the book showcases innovative strategies that advocate for an expanded professional practice that honors the vibrant diversity of LGBTQIA+ identities. By equipping art therapists with tools for active allyship and ethical care, Queer Worldmaking in Art Therapy aims to catalyze a shift towards more equitable therapeutic landscapes for all.