Co-sponsored by European Studies, IRIS NRC, and MESP.
Join us for our next International Book Club, a free hour-long virtual event open to all and designed with K–12 educators in mind. This session will feature Hakim’s Odyssey, a graphic novel chronicling the journey of a young Syrian man forced to flee his home amid conflict. Participants are encouraged to read the book in advance (available as an eBook or hard copy). The discussion will include insights from a scholar or practitioner with expertise in the book’s themes and invite attendees to reflect on issues of displacement, resilience, and global citizenship.
Peter Russella (UW–Madison), a scholar of French-language comics, will discuss the cultural significance of this medium for this story of migration, displacement, and resilience. Professor Nevine El Nossery will moderate.
* Event details are subject to change – be sure to put a reminder in your calendar for this upcoming event!
Peter Russella (he/him) is a PhD candidate in French at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is writing a dissertation entitled A Feu Tournant: The Lighthouses of French-Language Literature, Comics, and Film. He recently published a French and comics studies article entitled “Making the French Lighthouse Breton in Emmanuel Lepage’s Ar-Men” (pron: are – men) in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. On campus, he teaches French-language comics in his own department, comics from around the world in Prof. Adam Kern’s Introduction to Comics and Graphic Novels course, and has studied drawing with cartoonist Lynda Barry in the Art Department for nearly a decade. He is also a literary translator specializing in comics.
Nevine El Nossery is the Director of the Middle East Studies Program and Associate Professor in the departments of French and Italian and African Cultural Studies. Her research and teaching interests are Francophone and Postcolonial Studies, women writing, art and politics, and Middle-Eastern literatures and cultures.