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A coming-of-age story about a Palestinian youth growing up in a refugee camp during the 1960s. A childhood account of life in Lebanon during the civil war in the 1980s. A mother’s search for her son who disappeared during Iran’s 2009 election.

These narratives, as depicted in the graphic novels "Baddawi" (Just World Books, 2015), "A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return" (Graphic Universe, 2012), and "Zahra's Paradise" (First Second, 2012), were part of the reading list for Stanford students enrolled in the spring quarter course COMPLIT 254: The Middle East Through the Graphic Novel.

Each week, students read one or two graphic novels from different Middle Eastern countries to explore specific historical moments.

“For any course, it is a huge challenge to talk about the Middle East – it’s a huge region with many people and countries, each with different systems of government, religion, language, and ethnicity,” said Ayça Alemdaroğlu, a research scholar and associate director of the Program on Turkey at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). She co-taught the class with Burcu Karahan, a lecturer in comparative literature in the School of Humanities and Sciences (H&S).

“But graphic novels provide us with a way to think about those histories through stories, narratives, and observations,” Alemdaroğlu added. “Graphic novels get to the point easily and fast.”

Alemdaroğlu and Karahan began their first class by showing students maps of the Middle East to illustrate its diversity and expanse—nearly 3 million square miles encompassing 17 countries. They also used maps to explain recent geopolitical shifts shaping today’s Middle East.

“We started with maps to describe the making of the modern Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and World War I as a way to show how borders were drawn and states were formed,” Karahan explained.

The initial graphic novel on their syllabus was "Aivali" (Somerset Hall Press, 2014) by Greek political cartoonist Soloúp. It describes events following the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, particularly focusing on a population exchange between Greek and Turkish governments that displaced approximately 1.5 million Ottoman Greeks—a significant event referred to by some historians as “The Catastrophe” or “Asia Minor Disaster.”

The course progressed chronologically through key historical moments such as Palestinian uprisings in Joe Sacco’s "Palestine" (Fantagraphics, 1996), financial unrest preceding Egypt's Arab Spring protests in Magdy El Shafee's "Metro: A Story of Cairo" (Metropolitan Books, 2012), and ongoing Syrian refugee crises depicted in Don Brown’s "The Unwanted: Stories of Syrian Refugees" (Clarion Books, 2018).

These graphic novels were supplemented by additional readings that contextualized themes like migration experiences, diaspora dynamics, personal memory versus collective history, colonialism impacts, revolutionary movements, and modernization efforts.

“By bringing all these details together,” Karahan noted, “graphic novels enrich a student’s understanding of a region at a particular moment in history that you cannot find in text-based books.”

For their final project, students had an option to create their own graphic novel. Nina—a student majoring in international relations—depicted her partner Hasan’s childhood experiences growing up in Dubai as part of her project. Her work highlighted challenges faced by migrant workers' families while capturing childhood nostalgia.

“This project captures difficulties growing up where you are perceived as lesser than while holding onto nostalgic joy,” Nina said.

Jacqueline Beccera echoed similar sentiments about using graphic novels for educational purposes. “I left with a completely nuanced understanding of human stories instead of just focusing on numbers or dates,” she said.

Nazli Dakad reflected on how these stories fostered empathy through visual storytelling techniques that include facial expressions conveying fear or confusion.

“Storytelling is the kindest way to bring differing perspectives,” Beccera concluded.

Stanford historian Tom Mullaney emphasized that historical graphic novels offer nuanced insights into complex subjects often difficult to capture through conventional writing or media formats.