This course introduces students to the study of comics and graphic narrative traditions in the Middle East. The genres and media covered include the comic strip, the graphic novel, the satirical cartoon or karikatir, graffiti, and Internet memes, with a focus on materials translated from Arabic and French.  We will examine the work of artists and authors from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, and Iran, while also exploring connections to the graphic narrative traditions of Europe, the United States, and Japan.  Though our focus remains on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we will also investigate parallels between modern sequential art and pre-modern graphic narrative forms, such as books of mirabilia, illuminated manuscripts pertaining to various branches of knowledge, manuals on magic and the occult sciences, and the shadow play.

Syllabus