Tag Archives: buraaq

Call for Papers (CFP): Muslim Superhero collection

The following announcement has been released and authorized for republishing and redistribution. Please feel free to copy the content below, link to this posting, or share this PDF of the Call for Papers:

Image from the Webster Journal
From The Webster Journal – http://websterjournal.com/2013/11/20/global-thinking-kamala-khan-marvel-launches-female-muslim-superhero/

Call for Papers
Muslim Superheroes: Comics, Islam, and Representation

Editors: A. David Lewis and Martin Lund

Now accepting chapter proposals for new collection with established publisher interest!

Despite turning a rather blind eye to them through much of the twentieth century, major American comic book publishers like Marvel Comics and DC Comics have featured, in the twenty-first century, numerous Muslim superhero characters, with the seeming intention to diversify their fictional universes and to provide corrective representations of Muslims in a cultural moment when stereotype and vilification of Muslims and Islam is particularly rife. The most recent example is Marvel’s Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel, Feb. 2014). Although it might be easy to dismiss Ms. Marvel as something peripheral, she was discussed in various mainstream media long before her first appearance. High praise was expressed by Muslims and non-Muslims who thought the character could help “normalize” Muslims in American eyes while vehement opposition was voiced by critics who regarded her as “appeasement” of Muslims. As recently as January 2015, the character was plastered on anti-Muslim ads in San Francisco, illustrating the cultural power such characters can attain. It seems clear that, today, Muslim superheroes and Islam in comic books, more generally matter greatly to a large number of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Of course, Muslim superheroes are not restricted to the post-9/11 years, to the major superhero publishers, nor to the United States. There have been limited examples of Muslim superheroes in American superhero comics since their so-called “Golden Age.” And, smaller American publishers have created characters like Buraaq and the Silver Scorpion. More importantly, in recent years a steady stream of successful Muslim superhero comics has been emerging from Islamic contexts, ranging from the now multinational The 99 to the activist webcomic Qahera, much of which has also met with both approval and condemnation at home and abroad.

However, neither the historical precedents for the most recent American characters nor the contemporary diversity among Muslim superheroes is widely known. Although the Muslim superhero is becoming an increasingly important cultural phenomenon, it is still understudied and ill-understood, as is the representation of Islam in comics generally. Therefore, we are now looking for chapter proposals for the edited volume Muslim Superheroes. Through a series of close readings, this collection will study how Muslim and non-Muslim comics creators and critics have produced, reproduced, and represented different conceptions of Islam and Muslimness, embodied in superhero comics characters specifically and comic book protagonists more generally.
The purpose of the collection is threefold. First, it will assemble studies of a variety of comics characters and, thus, begin to outline the long history and diversity of Muslim superheroes. Second, it will attempt to answer some basic questions about these characters: why do Muslim superheroes keep being created?; what purposes do they serve?; how do they succeed (and how do they fail) in performing their assigned duties as signifiers of one conception of Islam or another? Third, it sets out to consider the extent of the impact Muslim superheroes have and will continue to have on both the genre and its audiences today. Possible topics for proposals include, but are not limited to:

  • Muslim superheroes in Marvel or DC comics in a specific period (“Golden Age,” “Silver Age,” “Bronze Age,” post-9/11)
  • Close readings of specific characters from other publishers (e. g. Buraaq, Silver Scorpion, Qahera, The 99)
  • Reception (positive and negative), consumption, and uses of Muslim superheroes
  • Translation and transposition of American superheroes in Islamic contexts

Please send a short synopsis (no more than 150 words) of your chapter, a full abstract (no more than 800 words), as well as contact information, affiliation, and a short CV with publication list to a.lewis@mcphs.edu by April 30, 2015. Feel free to direct any questions to Martin Lund at p.martin.lund@gmail.com.

***
About the Editors
A. David Lewis is the co-editor of Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels (Bloomsbury) and Digital Death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age (Praeger). He holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Boston University and is both an Executive Board Member of the Comics Studies Society and a founding member of Sacred & Sequential.

Martin Lund is a Swedish Research Council International Postdoc at Linnaeus University and Visiting Research Scholar at the Gotham Center for New York City History at the CUNY Graduate Center. He holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from Lund University and is an editor of the Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art and a contributing member of Sacred & Sequential.

Muslim Superheroes

Recent weeks have produced a bevy of commotion regarding Muslim superheroes, to whit:

In May, A. David Lewis was interviewed by WBUR’s  “Here and Now” host Robin Young about the depiction of Muslim protagonists in superhero comics, particularly in the wake of Osama Bin Laden’s assassination. Lewis had recently given a talk on the subject at Harvard University as part of a one-day event about Muslim identities in comics. That, in turn, seems to have led to an article by BU Today report Rich Barlow focusing on Lewis and his interest in characters like Dust, Nightrunner, the Janissary, the Arabian Knight, and others.

What is clear is that Muslims on the comics pages confront the conundrum of their flesh-and-blood counterparts: their community views them with suspicion. Lewis says non-Muslim heroes wonder, “Can they truly represent the American way? Could they really be on our side? When Dust joins the X-Men, these persecuted American mutants don’t really know if they can trust her. The comic book creators can have it both ways. They can present an altruistic Muslim hero, but also reflect the Islamophobia.”

The BU Today article was accompanied by a slideshow of such characters set to music:

Barlow’s article was picked up by Madinat Al-MuslimeenProfessor Hussein Rashid’s Islamicate.com, and The Houston Chronicle‘s “Believe It Or Not” column, among others. It also received comment of an altogether different sort from Avi Green of The Infidel Bloggers Aliance and The Astute Bloggers:

Wow! So in Lewis’s narrow vision, the Copts of Egypt aren’t victimized, nor are the French, the Israelis, the Sudanese Christians, or even the Armenians during WW1, when the Islamic-led Ottoman Empire of Turkey slaughtered at least a million Armenians. Nor, I suppose, was Lara Logan when she was gang raped in Egypt back in February. What a most utter ignoramus. I guess he hasn’t ever read the Koran either.

Green suggests The 99 as one example of Muslim superheroes Lewis may have been trying to sidestep: “Lewis chose to put his head in the sand.” Meanwhile, that series was being featured elsewhere online, as part of The National‘s coverage of DC Comics’ recent publishing shift. Shot in February, the video focuses on The 99‘s creator Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa discussing the multi-national and inter-religious basis for the series in addition to its Islamic roots.

Superman #712
New cover but old solicitation.

Coincidentally, DC’s position on Muslim characters was challenged in a different way this month with the resolicitation of Superman #712. ComicBookResources.com reports that the issue was originally supposed to feature Superman teaming up with the Muslim hero Sharif (formerly Sinbad), but it had been replaced with a story of Krypto the Super-dog. ComicBook.com notes that “the change was apparently so last minute by DC Comics that the DC Comics website still shows the old content description for Superman #712 with the new Krytpo the Superdog cover image for Superman #712.” ComicBookMovie.com has opened a poll to ask readers whether the decision was a wise move or not.

Lastly, in separate but not unrelated news, PR Newswire announced the new series Buraaq from Split Moon Arts. The title character is “a practicing Muslim, a regular guy who is turned into a superhero by traumatic events in his youth.  According to SplitMoonArts, the mission is not to preach, but to provide wholesome family entertainment. The underlying message, they say, would help foster better relations between the West and the Islamic World.” Whether this is, as the PR Newswire headline reports, the first Muslim superhero is doubtful, but that claim does not seem to originate with SplitMoonArts itself.