Dr. Knopf is an award-winning scholar of political, pop cultural, and visual rhetoric and a professor of speech and human communication.
Professor. Author. Speaker. Editor. Leader.
Christina M. Knopf, PhD
More than just escapist entertainment, comics offer a popular yet complicated vision of the American political tableau. Politics in the Gutters considers the political myths, moments, and mimeses in comic books—from nonfiction to science fiction, superhero to supernatural, serious to satirical, golden age to present day—to consider how they represent, re-present, underpin, and/or undermine ideas and ideals about American electoral politics.
Cartoons by hundreds of artists-at-arms from more than a dozen countries and spanning two centuries are included in this study—the first to consider such a broad range of military comics. War and military life are examined through the inside jokes of the men and women who served, looking at recurring themes of culture, hierarchy, enemies and allies, geography, sexuality, combat, and civilian relations, describing how comics function within a community.
Online Articles
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2024
“We are no longer connected, Jean”: The alienation of
X-women ’97
2023
Anger and fear and feminism
in She-Hulk:
Attorney at Law
2023
Familiarity is the path to the Dark Side: Domesticating political problems with Star Wars
2022
Joker, jesters,
and gender: Subverting
social standards
2021
“Like his dad”: Epistolic constructions of American children in World War II
2020
Menacing & maternal:
The limits of motherhood in Spider-Man
2019
"Carrie Fisher sent me”: Princess Leia as an avatar of resistance in the Women’s March(es)
2019
The new nostalgic impulse of Dungeons & Dragons and tabletop gaming
2019
Queer female superheroes:
DC Comics Bombshells
tell their own story
2018
BrainDead:
The horrors of
election 2016
2014
Sense-making & map-making: War letters as personal geographies
2012
Fourth generation warfare
and the US military’s
social media strategy
