It started with a collection

University curriculum naturally drives its campus’ library collections. Librarians work to ensure our collections map to the curricular needs of our students and research needs of the faculty. Perhaps less frequently, library collections have an opportunity to shape curriculum and create new courses of study. SDSU’s rapid growth in collecting comics was the catalyst that mobilized faculty in the creation of new coursework, research and programming.

In 2010, SDSU’s original comic book collection totaled to approximately 3,000 single-issue comic books and graphic novels. We saw an untapped potential in Southern California for a large academic library collection of comics and we went for it! In less than ten years, the collection grew to more than 120,000 published comics, in addition to ephemera and archival collections. SDSU is now home to one of the larger academic comic book collections in the US.

Campuswide collaboration

In 2019, I partnered with Professor Elizabeth Pollard in the History Department to develop a new course focused specifically on comics. It would become SDSU’s first permanent ‘on-the-books’ comics course. Invigorated by our collaboration, we brought together faculty from across campus who had an interest in using the library’s comic arts collection and growing the study of comics at SDSU.

In the five years that followed - and during a global pandemic - we grew from a handful of faculty exploring ideas around a conference room table to an institutionally-recognized Center for Comics Studies with more than 45 faculty members from five SDSU colleges — including humanists, educators, librarians, scientists, and artists - offering nearly 20 courses specifically focused on comics in 13 academic departments.^{Footnote 1}

Rapid growth with the help of US federal grant funding

As mentioned in the introduction, securing institutional funding for a non-degree-granting and highly interdisciplinary subject in a typically-siloed university environment is difficult. Faculty - both discipline-based and in the library - are frequently asked to put in the free labor of proving a project is viable before funding is provided, leaving little room for progress and innovation if not for the tenacity of individual faculty members who are otherwise already carrying full workloads. While we did eventually receive modest amounts of funding from our administration, for which we are very grateful, it is not guaranteed annually, and we knew we needed to explore external grant funding to grow both our curriculum and national reputation.

We explored both public and private local, state and federal grant funding, finding the most success at the US federal level through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). In less than four years, Professor Pollard and I secured close to half a million dollars in federal funding to support our efforts with the study of comics. More specifically, the funding secured would examine how the medium of comics intersects with social justice and can be harnessed to explore the human experience, understand differences and build more empathy. To help understand what US comics scholars may lose with the elimination of federal funding streams, I’ll discuss what we were able to accomplish with each of these grants.

Our Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Forum Grant, Building capacity for research and teaching with comics and graphic art,^{Footnote 2} was a two-year National Leadership Grant that examined librarian and disciplinary faculty needs and perceptions of using comics in higher education, particularly for the study of social issues; the role of academic libraries in providing support for scholarly engagement with comics; and how well libraries are meeting the needs of their comics communities, particularly with respect to social justice in comics. The grant allowed us to bring together professionals who work closely with comics for three forum discussions, meant to build community and serve as focus groups. Our first forum was for local San Diego area librarians; the second was for academic librarians nationwide; and the third was for higher education disciplinary faculty who teach with comics. The results of the study can be found in a white paper we published in 2023.^{Footnote 3} This grant helped build a national community of librarians and comics instructors at the higher ed level and gave us a roadmap to help make the study of comics in the US more accessible. Many of the recommendations for future study and collaboration are currently being enacted by academic comic arts librarians and curators across the US.

The IMLS is a US federal agency that provides library grants, museum grants, policy development, and research. It is the only federal organization specifically designed to financially support libraries in the US. In March of 2025, The White House issued an executive order^{Footnote 4} calling for the elimination of the IMLS^{Footnote 5} and appointed a new Acting Director who lacks the extensive - or rather any - experience and qualifications in museum or library services one would expect to see at the helm of nationwide efforts in support of these cultural and learning institutions. The Acting Director’s stated goals are to, ‘… restore [IMLS’] focus on patriotism, ensuring we preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations.’^{Footnote 6} Based on the rhetoric and actions of the current administration, and the narrowing grip on which parts of America are to be loved and by whom, it is implied that work like ours - that engages with issues of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) to embrace all Americans and our history - is ‘unpatriotic.’

Our grant has already successfully concluded, but the elimination of this funding stream is hurting libraries and museums across the country. The loss of federal funding not only jeopardizes research projects like ours, but will likely eliminate access to library resources, early literacy programs, help for job seekers, books for people with visual impairments, wifi in rural locations, and countless innovative programs that serve the general public. On November 21, 2025, a US federal judge nullified the Administration’s actions to dismantle the ILMS, calling the actions arbitrary and capricious. The ruling permanently prohibits the federal government from taking such actions in the future. However, funding is discretionary, determined through the annual congressional appropriations process. It remains to be seen how well libraries in the US will be supported moving forward and which grant programs will survive.^{Footnote 7}

One of our National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, Building a comics and social justice curriculum,^{Footnote 8} allowed us to develop ten new comics-specific courses that deepened and expanded SDSU’s humanistic comics curriculum and thoughtfully integrated the SDSU Library’s comic arts collection into classes. These new courses allow us to offer a Certificate in Comics Studies^{Footnote 9} for students with a serious interest in studying the medium. Our grant recently gained national attention in a New york times opinion piece wherein the author rebuked our work and stated:

Rhetorical tactics such as this have become increasingly common in the US. Attempts to position projects that are pro-diversity and pro-inclusivity as instead homogenous and discriminatory distorts both the truth and civil rights laws, thus aiding in the government’s justification to eliminate and cancel funding.

In April 2025, the NEH website for this grant program stated, ‘The Humanities Initiatives at HSIs funding opportunity is cancelled for FY2026 and is not accepting applications.’^{Footnote 11} By May, access to the grant website was blocked altogether. The funding stream is now lost to all future projects.

Our NEH Institute for K-12 Educators grant, Using comics to teach social justice,^{Footnote 12} provided funding for a two-week residential summer institute. We brought 25 K-12 educators from 16 states to the SDSU Library to engage with how comics grapple with pressing social issues. We explored SDSU’s comic arts collection for age-appropriate content and helped guide teachers and school librarians in creating lesson plans suitable to their own state’s teaching and learning standards in multiple humanistic disciplines. Plus, we all went to San Diego Comic-Con together!

Teachers looked for age-appropriate comics that, at their core, could be used to teach about inclusion and understanding differences. Many mentioned a desire to lower rates of bullying and increase self-acceptance to help build their students’ self-esteem as well as their empathy for others. We were also able to consider comics that address misinformation and disinformation, employing critical thinking skills that are key to developing civically-engaged, truth-seeking and compassionate students. It was heartening to spend time with these frontline educators and help find ways for them to make a positive impact on the lives of their students using comics.

The grant’s post-institute evaluations were overwhelmingly enthusiastic. One participant even described their experience as ‘life-changing.’ They were also very enthusiastic about their desire for the NEH to offer the institute again and wanted other teachers to have the opportunities afforded to them with this grant project. Having built a tight community through our grant, participants continue to keep in contact with each other through a messaging app, and teachers have followed up with us to share stories about the successful implementation of their lesson plans.

The NEH encourages successful programs for K-12 educators to reapply for federal funding on a biennial basis and our program was strongly encouraged to do so. Given the popularity and seemingly wild success of the program, we had every reason to believe our project would be funded again for an institute to be offered in summer 2026. However, an April 2025 NEH press release stated the agency will:

That, coupled with lists of keywords federal agencies are reportedly using to weed out so-called ‘woke’ research endeavors,^{Footnote 14} likely flagged our application for denial. The current US Administration has made it clear that projects like ours are unwelcome, and in August, we received a letter rejecting funding for the second round of our lauded program.

Loss and resilience

Financially, humanities-based grants in the US are incredibly small, but their impact has been remarkable. Preserving our cultural heritage, enhancing education, and fostering public engagement with the humanities has long-term societal and educational benefits, offering tools to navigate the complexities of our world. To put the return-on-investment for federal grants into perspective, IMLS and NEH are responsible for approximately .004% and .003% of the US federal budget respectively, costing each US citizen a mere one dollar and 43 cents per year. It would seem, then, that financial austerity is not what is driving the elimination of funding.

Funding sources for humanities in the US were already limited. The decision to eliminate federal grant programs - or to retool them into nationalistic endeavors to stoke ‘American Exceptionalism’ - will have a chilling effect on our ability to grapple with ethical dilemmas and values related to human behavior and society. There may be less time and money to dedicate to developing critical thinkers, documenting the human condition, interpreting the past, and imagining a better future for all people.

Many colleagues around the US have had their federal grant funding revoked midway through the project, impeding their research in unimaginable ways. While we are fortunate enough to have seen our funded projects through to completion, the loss of these revenue streams will have a lasting negative impact on humanities scholarship in the US. The new era of grant discrimination in which US scholars find ourselves is not based on the merit of our work or its impactfulness on the populations we serve, but rather on a culture war that seeks to silence rather than celebrate differences.

So where do we go from here? The current situation has US researchers plunged into uncertainty at best and chaos at worst. Things change daily with no one clear path forward. Executive orders are not laws, yet many federal lawmakers have demonstrated an unwillingness to retain or reclaim their elected roles in governance. Numerous lawsuits have been filed challenging federal decisions to eliminate government funding. As those cases slowly work their way through the court system, researchers are mobilizing to imagine creative solutions that may allow progress to continue in the face of a catastrophic loss of federal investment in humanities scholarship.

At SDSU, we are holding strong to our values, our students’ needs and our thought-provoking, diverse and inclusive comics curriculum. The first student to complete our Certificate in Comics Studies graduated last May. We continue to grow our comic arts collection. We hosted our first international Comics Scholar-in-Residence and Comics Artist-in-Residence on campus this in fall of 2025. We are leaning into donor relationships and community collaborations to explore alternative funding streams that might support projects such as a summer institute for K-12 educators, and we continue to work with lawmakers to ensure there is federal investment in ‘we the people’ and our diverse cultural histories.

Comics faculty, librarians and students at SDSU have seen the power in comics to shine a spotlight on all kinds of social injustice, imagine a better world, and empower readers to bring into being more equitable and just futures. In the inspiring words of Martian Manhunter, ‘The future is worth it. All the pain. All the tears. The future is worth the fight.’^{Footnote 15}

We just need to fight even harder for that future.