ARAB 360Comics and the Middle East

Catalog

This course explores comics and graphic novels that portray the Middle East, its peoples, and their experiences. We will read comics and graphic novels that are written or illustrated by authors and artists from the Middle East in dialogue with those created by their counterparts from across the globe - so long as the Middle East, its diasporas, and their communities (as part and parcel of our connected world) are the focus of their works. Examples of the comics and graphic novels we will study range from world-renowned works such as Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Joe Sacco's Palestine to Deena Mohamad's Shubeik Lubeik, Riad Sattouf's The Arab of the Future, and Zeina Abirached's I Remember Beirut. Some of these works are written originally in English and some others will be read in English translation from their original languages, such as Arabic. Comics and graphic novels are considered media of sequential art since they tell stories via drawings that are usually accompanied with written texts. We will learn about their unique aesthetics, the theories that look into graphic storytelling as an artistic expression, and the imaginative process it entails. We will delve into how all this can expand our perceptions about the Middle East as part and parcel of our connected globe. We will pay special attention to the historical contexts, global, regional, and national, that inform the creation of the comics and graphic novels we study. In so doing, we will discuss the political, socio-economic, and cultural conditions that these works invoke and engage therefore with the history of colonial rule in the modern Middle East and its legacy in the present time. We will discuss the nation-state, immigration, race, gender and sexuality, religion, citizenship and belonging, and human rights; all while learning to appreciate and critique different comics and graphic novels.