In case I Make It: An Autoethnographic Argument for Care, Space, and Utopia

Author

Faelyn T. Cowan, University of South Florida

Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Major Professor

David Rubin, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Nik Lampe, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Milton Wendland, Ph.D.

Keywords

bookstores, book clubs, mental health care, medical model, LGBTQ+ mental health

Abstract

Taking an autoethnographic and autotheoretical approach I examine within this project TomboloBooks’ Queer Comic Book Club. Drawing from José Esteban Mun֮oz’s ideas of queer utopia and Jen Jack Gieseking’s framework of constellations, and analyzing my own experiences, I present the Queer Comic Book Club (QCBC) as a moment of utopic queer worldmaking and argue for it’s potential as a site of alternative mental health care. Though I cannot provide here a generalizable model of book clubs as care, what I offer here is a series of possibilities, arguing for the potential of these spaces as community resources and sites of utopic potential.

Scholar Commons Citation

Cowan, Faelyn T., "In case I Make It: An Autoethnographic Argument for Care, Space, and Utopia" (2025). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/10935