In her first visit back to campus since being named a MacArthur Fellow, Alison Bechdel, cartoonist, graphic novelist and UVM James Marsh Professor-at-Large, will speak on “Dykes, Dads, and Moms to Watch Out For,” Thursday, Nov. 13 at 5:30 p.m. in Ira Allen Chapel.

For twenty-five years, Bechdel, who lives in Vermont, wrote and drew the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, a generational chronicle called “one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period.” (Ms. magazine.) Her graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was named Best Book of 2006 by Time magazine, which described the investigation into her closeted bisexual father’s suicide “a masterpiece about two people who live in the same house but different worlds, and their mysterious debts to each other.”

In 2008, Bechdel began devoting herself full-time to autobiographical work. Her second graphic memoir, Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama, was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2012 by Time magazine.

This September, Bechdel was named winner of a 2014 MacArthur Foundation grant, commonly called the “genius” award.

The goal of UVM’s James Marsh Professor-at-Large program is to invigorate the academic and cultural life of the university. It accomplishes this by appointing individuals of international distinction to honorary faculty positions, bringing them periodically to campus for lectures, classroom visits, conferences and collaboration — with faculty and with students.

Learn more about the James Marsh Professor-at-Large program.