This graduate workshop is conducted by Stephanie Burt.
What can we do with X-Men comics that we can't do with superhero comics, or with mainstream comics, in general? The comics-- at their best, also technically brilliant-- famously offer allegories for minority groups, but they also consider nationalism and state formation: when does a group want or need or create or defend or give up its own territory, with diplomats and a capital and an attempted monopoly on the use of force? This workshop will look at panels, issues and storylines in which the X-Men attempt to create their own nation, with cross-cultural parallels (apparently deliberate on the writers' part) to Israel-Palestine, to North American Native nations, to Nineteenth century Romantic nationalisms in Ireland, Poland and elsewhere and to the metaphorical "nations" formed by queer, trans and disabled activists. We'll talk about how these stories work or don't work, and listen to participants with ideas, readings and comics or superhero or disability or queer or national research directions of their own.
