Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele (review)

For a text that intends to make queer theory and its applications more accessible than many academic texts on the subject, utilizing the form of a graphic novel seems an appropriate and useful way to fulfill its purported function. Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele's Queer: A Graphic History purports to "invite you to queer theory and to encourage you to try thinking queerly" (5).

Each page is given a title to help contextualize the information and imagery held therein, but the text is not separated into sections or chapters as a traditional book might be. However, there seem to be four major arcs that encompass the information: Introduction to Queer Theory, Applications of Queer Theory, Tensions within Queer Theory, and the Future of Queer Theory. At the top of the text, readers are introduced to the vocabulary of queerness, tracing the etymology of the word "queer," as well as the concepts and terminologies found in the Western medical and psychological discourses that make up our contemporary understandings of gender and sexuality. Next, the book dives into its introduction to queer theory with a consideration of the "precursors to queer theory," which include existentialist thinkers like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre; early feminist writers and activists like Simone de Beauvoir and Audre Lorde; and biologist Alfred Kinsey, whose scale of human sexuality launches the book's discussion of binary and essentialist thinking. The introduction to queer theory continues with a lengthy discussion of poststructuralist theory, focusing tightly on the theories of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. Using Butler and Foucault, Barker and Scheele engage in a few vocabulary lessons, defining key terms such as "heteronormativity" and "intersectionality."

With the key terms and ideas laid out, the text moves on to the ways in which these theories and terms can be (and are) applied in practice. In this section, the text explores the applications of queer theory as "discourse analysis" (100), touching on a wide range of topics from Internet fan fiction to Jack Halberstam's "low theory" to the biopsychosocial theories of scholars like Anne Fausto-Sterling (116). The text then moves on to an examination of the ways in which queer theory has failed to account for many of the nuances of identity and experience with regard, in particular, to race, class, ability, and even gender. Barker and Scheele then explore theorists from outside of the white academic canon, such as Cathy Cohen, José Esteban Muñoz, and Gayatri Chakrvorty Spivak, and introduce theories that expand beyond the scope of Western, U.S.-, and Eurocentrism. This is also the space where the text dives into other theories and disciplines under the "queer" umbrella, including transgender studies and bisexuality. Finally, the book moves into the section that takes stock of the current status of queer theory and imagines where the field may continue to grow and expand, based on the location of the heat at the moment of publication. This future imagining touches on questions surrounding "new normativities," such as those in the theories of Dean Spade; Halberstam and Sara Ahmed's anti-capitalist theories of failure and affect, respectively; and considerations of community, which contain multiple possibilities of expanding and constricting the boundaries of what it means to be or do "queer."

As mentioned previously, Barker and Scheele's decision to use a graphic format in order to present the often jargon-heavy canon of queer theory is an effective one. Barker manages to consolidate nearly a century's worth of information and analysis into small paragraphs, which are dwarfed by Scheele's illustrations, which take up most of the space on each page. Often, when a theorist is mentioned, Barker will provide a paraphrased version of one of their key theories, which is presented as a speech or thought bubble protruding from an illustration in their likeness, which Scheele manages to capture with an uncanny eye for just enough detail to communicate each person's image without...