Cultural Politics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Date: 

Monday, March 5, 2018, 4:30pm to 6:30pm

Location: 

CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge Street, Bowie-Vernon Room (K262)

"A Secret History of Arab Comics: The Case of the Egyptian Newspaper Al-Dostour During Mubarak's Twilight"

Speaker:

Jonathan Guyer, Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. Independent Journalist.

Contact:

Ilana Freedman
ifreedman@g.harvard.edu

Chairs:

Panagiotis Roilos, Faculty Associate. George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies, Department of the Classics; Professor of Comparative Literature, Department of Comparative Literature, Harvard University.

Dimitrios Yatromanolakis, Associate Professor, Department of Classics, Department of Anthropology, and the Humanities Center, The Johns Hopkins University.

Abstract:

Cartooning has long been a pillar of the public discourse in Egypt. Especially during authoritarian times, cartooning has often been where political critique is loudest, or most daring. But the inherently ironic logic of cartooning means that the volume and barb of this critique is never straightforward. In fact, its very meaning derives from the fact that it tacks closely—and ambiguously—to red lines. In Egypt, a prohibition on “insulting” the president had long restricted the press and by extension cartoonists. But in the mid-2000s, a rag-tag group of cartoonists began to draw President Hosni Mubarak.

Based on archival research and interviews with cartoonists who worked together at the opposition weekly newspaper Al-Dostour, I will focus on illustrated attacks on political authority, notably Mubarak, in five years leading up to of the 2011 uprising. During this period, they would also launch revolutionary comics publications (and garner cult followings). Today these cartoonists, along with others in Cairo and Arab capitals, constitute an emergent Arab alternative comics (or alt-comix) movement. Influenced by little-known, radical Arab cartoonists from the past half-century, these cartoonists have persevered as trenchant critics amid successive, repressive regimes.

Biography:

Jonathan Guyer is a journalist focused on the politics of art and literature in the Middle East. He is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a contributing editor of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs. He has written for the Art Newspaper, Guernica, Harper’s, Los Angeles Review of Books, Modern Painters, Le Monde diplomatique, New Yorker, New York Review Daily, New York Times, Paris Review, and Rolling Stone, among others. His research has been supported by fellowships from Fulbright (2012–2013) and the Institute of Current World Affairs (2015–2017). He blogs at Oum Cartoon and tweets: @mideastXmidwest.