This course introduces upper-level undergraduate students to graphic novels and comics from and about the Muslim world: from the Arab and Persian Middle East, to South and Southeast Asia, North Africa, and immigrant communities in Europe and the United States. The common theme of the works we examine is the struggle to reconcile Islamic religious and Muslim cultural values with each other, and with imperialism, neocolonialism, democracy, and technology, in the contemporary world context of civil unrest and mass voluntary and refugee migrations.

Subtopics of the course include Muslim feminism, immigrant Islam in North America and Europe, urban Arab cities, Muslim youth cultures, digital Islam, war and childhood, and post 9/11 literary negotiations by Muslim writers. We will read long-form graphic novels, serial comics, other graphic literature excerpts, and complementary critical and secondary works on sequential art and the national settings of the primary works. Graphic novels include The Arab of the Future (Syria/Libya), Zahra’s Paradise (Iran), and Lissa (Egypt). Comics include The Sandman: Ramadan (fabled Baghdad), The 99 (Kuwait), and Ms. Marvel (U.S.).

Our major course goals include deconstructing the role that form and style play in transmitting and questioning ideas and ideologies; analyzing how the graphic medium differs from traditional literary works; and identifying conceptual differences between the terms “Islam” and “Muslim.”