Mediterranean Crossroads in Comics

We often think of comics in terms of American popular culture, but in this course we will examine Italian, Egyptian, and Palestinian traditions among others as we investigate how visual culture shapes the Mediterranean world. We will explore the way that graphic narrative – as a genre of crossroads – constructs national and regional identity and the impact of visual media on present-day regional conflicts. Beyond studying the engagement of comics with stereotypes and representations of violence, we will also grapple with the role of translation in these texts. Our discussions will stem from a foundation in comics theory as we compare a variety of graphic narratives – from horror to political thriller, adventure to coming-of-age stories set against a backdrop of social unrest and war – in order to better understand the unique capacity of comics to illustrate and complicate the tension between continents and shores in the Mediterranean today.