During the tumultuous events of the 1978-79 Iranian Revolution, hundreds of thousands of Iranians from diverse political and economic backgrounds participated in mass demonstrations against the Pahlavi Monarchy. Expressing their grievances towards Mohammad Reza Shah, protestors took to the streets to challenge the U.S.-allied regime and demand change. As civilian unrest grew exceptionally stronger, the voices of the previously suppressed opposition groups grew louder. Diverse political and social organizations, including the Organization of Iranian People's Fada’i Guerrillas (Fada’i-e Khalq), disseminated their revolutionary ideologies through a variety of communicative media. While the eventual consolidation of state power under Ayatollah Khomeini demonstrates that Islamic-oriented groups most effectively mobilized the populace during the early-post revolutionary era, material evidence— such as political posters— reveals that various groups like the Fada’i-e Khalq were also significant instigators of dissent and fermenters of social action. Close examination of these visual ephemera as social agents exposes the complex ideological nuances of the 1979 Revolution. Political posters not only elucidate ideology, but also act as a testament to the political realities in which particular organizations operated. While previous studies of Iranian revolutionary poster art examine the visual content of the poster, such as iconographic motifs and cultural signs, these studies fail to contextualize the poster medium’s physicality and modes of production. Working within a material culture studies framework espoused by Elizabeth Edwards, Oleg Grabar, and Arjun Appadurai, this presentation will investigate the social life of the Fada’i poster. First, this paper will highlight the “pre-history” of the object by examining its processes of conception and production to reveal the operational structure of the clandestine Fada’iyan, as well as the printing technologies available to them. Following these germinative stages, the Fada’i poster is temporally and spatially contextualized through its dissemination in the public sphere. The object’s role is delineated as an inexpensive informational instrument aimed at conveying revolutionary zeal to the student population in the hopes of possible recruitment for the Fada’i cause. Finally, the presentation will discuss the artistic form of the Fada’i poster, particularly the representation of the fallen guerilla (cherik) as a martyr for the redemption of the collective. Such a study focusing on the material, presentational, and artistic forms of the Fada’i poster will lead to a better understanding of the poster medium as a one-way transmitter of an insurgent consciousness as well as to elucidate distinctive repertoire of visual motifs utilized during the 1979 Revolution.

A decade-long civil war that leaves 200,000 people dead is no laughing matter, and the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s proved no exception to this rule. At any time and place, the wrong word spoken to the wrong person could entail demise. Yet, cartoonists like Ali Dilem refused to be silenced by threats hailing from the warring state and Islamist factions. Instead, they composed drawings that encapsulated anger towards the regime and Islamists alike and constituted some of the most emotive images from the conflict. What drove these artists to keep working during the war despite threats against themselves and their loved ones, the tightening noose of the state censor, and assassinations of their fellow journalists? While scholars such as Mark McKinney have analyzed cartoons produced by the most well-known cartoonists in the context of the war, they have not examined the reasons for which cartoonists of varying popularity continued their work throughout the bloodshed and terror. This presentation will draw upon interviews with Algerian cartoonists as well as their work to determine how and why they persisted in caricaturing during this harrowing time. The current project will argue that Algerian cartoonists intended for their work to voice narratives of discontent and dissent that most Algerians, bereft of such a public venue for venting their frustrations with the steadily devolving situation, could not articulate in an open and widespread manner. In the process, these artists yearned to help readers make sense of and cope with the horrific events of the war through their sketches. Foucauldian and Gramscian notions of how discourse can create and challenge power will provide the theoretical framework for this paper. With the assistance of such ideas, this paper will illustrate how humorists can assist populations in confronting corrupt authorities and use their art as a forum for expressing broader discontent with political forces. It will be of interest to those wanting to learn more about how artists perceive their role in influencing and articulating public opinion during times of unrest and disruption in a North African context.

As inheritors of Orientalist images from Europe, America has participated as both consumer and image-maker in an embellished mythology of consistent and dangerous representations of Middle Eastern images and the stereotypes of those labeled Middle Eastern, Arab, or Muslim. Why has the lack of balance been so profound and the recycled narratives so constant? From textual analysis of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad from the Alto California Letters to the American and British editions, I found a correlation between the intensity of his editing and the portions of his text detailing his travels in the Middle East. Twain’s is a stark example of the unchanging nature of representation and trope over time. It is easy to trace these representations and stereotypes in modern American popular culture from the twenty-four hour news networks to the pages of fashion magazines. This paper begins to look at the emerging Arab-American social organization structures finding uncoordinated parallels between the socio-political and artistic movements and that both use proven methods of humanization and success that are themselves being recycled. I believe our methodologies must operate with the same hybridity as identity. I rely on the conversations begun through the discourse of Orientalism while infusing the action of actual people and attempt to exclude the old centers of power. Close readings of Arab-American fiction, art, comedy, and media reveal normalized immigrant experiences. Similar ways of working out the duality of being tied to two or more places are expressed through writing and media. Exile and its discontents, what is lost and gained in the pursuit of the American dream, transgression against family both real and projected as cultural loss, and the design of cultural continuity are all addressed. I argue that these movements act to counter the common “reading” of the Orientalist historiography. These counter narratives are imperative to giving perspective to the real world effects of Middle Eastern representations and their scope in the United States. This is more than theory and history, this is a living discussion and a living fight for some. By highlighting the bridging work already occurring in the diverse Arab-American communities and networks and by embracing the contradictions of identity, we cultivate more publicly the humanizing experience of real people, bringing us closer to a change in the stereotypes and their uses. The prejudice and discrimination will be palpable and more nuanced “articulations of Arabness” can be allowed to flourish.

The Latin alphabet and Arabic script followed very different trajectories from the handwritten page to the digital screen. This paper will examine how the shape and appearance of Arabic script shifted in relation to new media technologies. It traces the continuity of scribal tradition and digital design as a dialogue between calligraphy and Arabic type design. Although the complexity of calligraphic and scribal designs was difficult to replicate during the era of moveable type, digital technologies provide the opportunity to reclaim scribal variety. Contextual software allows letterforms to shift according new inputs and pre-established parameters, and such parameters can be programmed to closely mimic a variety of scribal styles. Thus, calligraphic tradition is resituated as an important precursor to textual and graphic design. Current practitioners mine the rich visual diversity of scribal tradition as inspiration for contemporary design. But debate has arisen surrounding the modernization of Arabic type. On one side, type designers wish to simplify the appearance of Arabic type in line with modernist type aesthetics. Such designs place emphasis upon clarity, legibility, and the ability of Arabic fonts to operate within bilingual and multilingual texts. The recent Typographic Matchmaking projects, organized by the Khatt Foundation for Arabic Typography, provide one of the best examples of this approach. The project designed Arabic companion fonts that share visual consistency and font sizing with five Latin typefaces. On the other side of the divide, increasingly complex software simulates the visual complexity of scribal manuscripts. Programs such as the Arabic Calligraphic Engine (ACE) employ context and rule-based analysis in order to replicate the calligraphic line. The technology therefore preserves the visual and cultural heritage of Arabic tradition by replicating both the form of the texts as well as their content. Thomas Milo, who designed ACE and the accompanying Tasmeem software, was awarded the prestigious Dr. Peter Karow Award for Font Technology & Digital Typography for the sophistication and promise of the program. The presentation connects primary archival research with early specimens of Arabic print, as well as ethnographic and interview data with contemporary calligraphers, designers, and typographers. Tracing a line across calligraphy, modernity, and computing, this talk traces the aesthetic and technical shape of Arabic writing in a digital age. By looking to the past, we open exciting possibilities for the future of design.