Through her use of the graphic novel genre, Satrapi strategically seizes control of the reader’s imagination. For years Satrapi was forced to ingest the images and cultural artifacts imposed on her from without by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Indeed Satrapi uses the graphic novel to coopt the images, signs and history that the Islamic Republic of Iran exercised over her and her people. By illustrating her memories as a subaltern Iranian female, Satrapi aggressively contests the Islamic Republic’s sole claim to write history.

Through her illustrations Satrapi creates her own – as Chakrabarty calls it – “alternative histor[y] in the heartland of ideology” (113). While Kraniauskas focuses on alternative temporalities to “global narratives of capital”, Satrapi’s novel comes closer to formulating an alternative temporality to the totalitarian fundamentalist Islamic regime;  “- in other words, [Satrapi successfully enunciates her own] cultural practices rather than mere false consciousness” (113). Both Kraniauskas’s and Satrapi’s conceptions of temporality challenge the hegemonic narratives imposed on the subaltern from without.

Parry (1994, 5) emphasizes the ‘enunciative act’ more than the substance of the narrated event. Likewise Bhabha (1994) is more interested in the enunciative process that creates a cultural difference which in turn challenges any single person’s, group’s or regime’s claim to cultural authority (118). While Satrapi’s narration of the Iraq-Iran war and other historical events is important, these events form the backdrop to another history: that of a female who bravely sets out to live her own life.

Through the enunciative act of her graphic novel, Satrapi causes disjunctures in the hegemonic temporalities of both European modernity and Islamic fundamentalism. Too Iranian for Europe and too European for Iran, Satrapi manages to forge her own hybrid identity and struggles to stop outside forces from shaping her subjectivity. To this extent then we can talk about alternative temporalities in two regards: that of the subaltern to the hegemonic and that of the interior to the exterior.

Satrapi exists in what Bhabha refers to as “hybrid time”. The image that Dr. Baer showed us with the split Socialist/Islamic imagery and corresponding unveiled/veiled Satrapi demonstrates how she had to inhabit different temporalities simultaneously. Likewise, the Islamic Republic’s “attempt to dominate” the cultural images was an attempt to shape individual’s subjectivities from outside to inside. Satrapi’s graphic novel is revolutionary to the extent that she cultivates her own semiotic language to challenge from the inside the external hegemony of the Islamic Republic (118). It is she and not the oppressive government who employs the signs, images and language to narrate and describe historical and cultural events. According to Marx and others it is the ruling class who controls the images and cultural artifacts, and so Satrapi’s use of graphic novel as an alternative form of historical narration is very radical.

Each cel of Satrapi’s graphic novel could be said to represent a point of disjuncture from the Islamic Republic’s writing of history. Furthermore, by aligning each disjunctive enunciation in her own desired order she is creating an alternative temporality that is based on her subjective experiences and memories. According to Bhabha “disjuncture – the return of the colonial repressed – happens in and through the present of enunciation” (121). Like splicing a broken film reel, Satrapi uses her graphic novel to cause a “temporal break in representation” and use her own images to create a hybrid history (121).

While abroad in Austria, Satrapi undergoes dramatic physical, emotional and psychological changes. Furthermore, she had accumulated cultural experiences that were at odds with the historical trajectory of the Islamic Republic. Her return to the Islamic Republic was akin to stepping into a time warp: having enjoyed the European luxuries of modernity for several years she would later return to a largely unchanged Islamic Republic, one which repudiated her new-found feminist identity. Both Europe and the Islamic Republic offered two different versions of hegemonic temporalities: one modern and capitalistic and the other archaic and religious. Like the Colossus of Rhodes, Satrapi straddles both temporalities and in so doing enunciates through language and images her own subjective understanding of history, a third space through which the reader can traverse.

When, on October 2, The Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco was silenced by the massacre of hundreds of students, the majority thought that it was an isolated event, mainly because the day after the blood was cleaned from the streets and the Olympic Games were celebrated fifteen days later. However, the student movement was highly relevant both for the world and for the own Mexicans. Mark Kurlansky denominated the global event “The year the world awoke”, and there are also other expressions like “The year that rocked the world,” and “The year of the barricades.” However, while many youth historians believe that it is a myth or a symbol expanded by young activists, others like De Groot doubt that the narrations of 68 were completely true. This is the essential problem of the movement:  historization (objective) versus memorialization (subjective). It is obvious that scholars show their concern about both concepts and think about how to solve a story told by testimonies, voices, political appropriations, incongruities…because the event becomes controversial. For that reason, whenever there is a collective trauma, a collective memory is required, but also “imaginary spaces” in which to leave all that which cannot be proven with exactitude, so that the information is exhaustive and arrives and a truthful historicity.

It is precisely those myths that form a transatlantic position/reading. There were more events that year in Europe. In France, for example, the official history has been reduced to a cruel riot, and in Germany, the student rebellion was oversimplified. Despite of the inaccuracies and difficulties of knowing what happened, it is essential to take them into account because the memory of ‘68 is the reflection of the postwar change and of modernization. It is also the mirror of the intellectual and political concerns of a culture and localizes the threats of a common national identity. The events that took place that year are deeply international because they interact with other movements around the world.  Warburg says that all of these movements transcend national borders in their attempt to create an order in the world.  1968 was also “a magical year” because it “collects” the previous events-after the war- and provides followers of the movement or prophets,- like Marjane who “wanted  justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.” Many countries took social constructions from México to create their (transnational) framework because of the spirit of revolution. This spirit crossed borders through the ‘68 commercialization, which is why icons like James Dean, Rock ´n Roll, or The Beatles came out. The commercialization of youth culture is part of the articulation of the 60s and it is also the representation of dissent: Nike used The Beatle´s song “Revolution” to promote their sneakers. Therefore, we have to establish a truly global perspective to create a comparative framework and get the great transnational dimension of ‘68 in our collective memories.

Regarding the national framework, Pierre Nora advocates the “lieu de memoires” to reconstruct history through fragments of the past like monuments, physical objects, costumes, etc, to construct identity. In Mexico, there is only a mural that commemorates that day, however many writers write about the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, describing the Mexican streets and places that provoke a nostalgic feeling. The chronicler Carlos Monsiváis states in his article “The Passion of the History” that: “We have History because it is our Nation and the proof that we have a Nation is that History is already ours.”

Mexico shapes its analysis through commemorations, protesters- “October 2 is not forgotten”- and literature. Fernando del Paso, María Luisa Mendoza, González de Alba, Elena Poniatowska or Bolaño are some of the writers that tell about Mexico, 1968 and support Nora´s notion about the event; “literature about the student movement, especially because of the specific conditions in which it emerged, eventalised 1968.” Last year, Poniatowska received the Nobel Prize for her work, La noche de Tlatelolco–a crude testimony of the repression against the students. The interviewer asked her about the literary references and she confirmed that the chronicler Monsiváis and their followers were the best narrators because “they mix their own life with the chronicle” and added that “that´s why journalists have opportunities of writing everything they see beyond themselves.” Although González de Alba, former student leader and one of Poniatowska’s sources, said that his words were distorted (imaginary spaces?) by Poniatowska, others supported her. Literature is sometimes controversial, however. Mexico shows its national framework with the recent 132 movement or the earthquake in 1985, that Poniatowska confirmed as the moment that moved her the most because of the citizen mobilization: “One of the few moments in which Mexico was able to look at itself and more over, overcome the tragedy.”

Mexico is in the trilogy–identity, memory and heritage–which are the most important concepts to be framed in both national and transnational contexts.

I have always heard that history progresses slowly, taking two steps forward and one step back. I have also heard that history can vary depending on which voice is speaking; each country in this world has its own version of official history and true history. Even though we still question what history is and what it is not, or how history is and how it was and how past events have repercussions today, in order to make collective decisions we need to create memory and know what we were in the past, what we are now and what we could be in the future. “World history” is a transnational term itself: it encloses borders and cultures and it seems to be the product of events, wars, rebellions and political forces across the cultures that compound the world’s space and time. All of these ideas came to my mind while I was reading the articles for this week. But how did the past determine the present? How is it that a single event in one place could be spread and determine a decade? And how could it change the world order?

According to the readings assigned, we move back to a particular year in a “recent” past in a postwar context to 1968, considered to be the first global and transnational rebellion which revealed itself in several places (such as in Mexico and Europe) and that continues to have relevance in a closed present time. But the results of 1968 are also a construction of imaginary spaces that embrace contradictions and complexities even today. Studies of memory, history and identity such as “Introduction: 1968 Memory and Place” claim a lack of attention to this year and how societies have constructed different ideas and interpretations of it–sometimes it was sold as a myth and an utopia– and also how it has been used and manipulated by political interests. Waters and Cornils emphasize the importance of this year, a rebellion year that was also focused on equality, and they pose a reconstruction of this year as memory through a collective consciousness and the creation of a transnational memory. In addition, the memory of 1968 could provoke a broader questioning that would redefine national and historical experience, locating the threads of a common national identity or opening it as an international movement.

In “Revisiting the Revolution: 1968 in Transnational Cultural memory”, Klimke  focuses more on the different levels of 1968 and how individual acts differed from country to country but at the same time was part of a larger social framework that constitutes memory, a social memory. The year 1968 created national recollections and transnational memories such as icons, images, references and experiences. The ‘sixties’ was an important decade for liberal ideas and the development of new trends in academic disciplines. The year 1968 was a transnationalist year that echoes other countries, a year that cross borders. Klimke describes “1968” as a central part of globalization.

There is no doubt that 1968 was a highly remarkable year. It encapsulated a phenomenon that sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. The introduction to the article “1968 in Europe A History of Protest and Activism, 1956- 1977” Klimke and Scharloth state that 1968 constituted a protest movement that had transcended national borders in its attempts to realize an alternative society and world order. 1968 was as a “transnational moment of crisis and opportunity.” It provided a window to the panorama of European experiences during and after this year. Protest techniques were a widespread resource for mobilization and were only selectively adopted according to to structural opportunities available in each country. The movements of 1968 influenced others and have been the foundation, icon and model for others today that call for rights and equality.

However, political forces tried to “forget 1968”. Others have seen the year as one of modernization and prosperity; a year with benefits and limitations depending on the voice who speaks, on who experienced it or not. Every event tries to find a place and space in history and even its reflection in our days. Today we have twenty-five years distance in time from the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event which also has limitations and benefits but that changed our civilization. It was also emblematic of the physical removal of a city and a distinguished date in the calendar of 1989 that chained other events and became a transnational event due its consequences.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union are facts that changed the world order. When the political leadership of the Soviet Union was renewed and Gorbatshov came to power, an economic system reform was carried out. The reforms in the Soviet Union, the division and the emergence of countries like Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia contributed to the end of the communist system.
The fall of the Berlin Wall led to the unification of the “two Germanies” physically separated by a “frontier”, and in the Gorbatshov reform it joined two systems clearly dividing the world: the communist and the capitalist. Later, these facts influenced internationally crossing borders reaching even the Chinese communist regime that even now is still “communist”, yet has adopted a market economy, a capitalist system.

The fall of communism and the access of communist countries to the capitalist economy make the world change economic structures and their functions according to a more globalized world order. However, a paradox emerges today: on one hand, a globalized world with its economic and financial integration, trade liberalization and the revolution of knowledge appeared –also called the technological revolution– with its icon: the Internet. On the other, more social divisions have emerged from this revolutionary period.

Everything in history is interconnected and defines the present. Everything that supposed a change in the world order remained relevant and became a symbol, an icon, a set of principles and archetypes. Images and symbols of Che Guevara and Communism or flags with the hammer and sickle could be seen in contemporary protests. They are a decoy of ideals, freedom of speech and reminiscences of world changing events and (trans)national forces.

Borrowing my title from Mark Kurlansky’s critically acclaimed historical text, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (2004), underscores the global impact that this year has had. He introduces his text stating that “there has never been a year like 1968, and it is unlikely that there will ever be one again. At a time when nations and cultures were still separate and very different – and in 1968 Poland, France, the United States, and Mexico were far more different from one another than they are today – there occurred a spontaneous combustion of rebellious spirits around the world” (xvii). Addressing the question of examining the benefits and limitations to focusing on one year in regard to transnationalism, Kurlansky points out the similarities and differences between the various rebellions: “What was unique about 1968 was that people were rebelling over disparate issues and had in common only that desire to rebel, ideas about how do it, a sense of alienation from the established order, and a profound distaste for authoritarianism in any form” (xvii). Following this line of thought, 1968, in a way, provides a unified global front in that the societies were experiencing similar struggles, contesting their specific cultural or political concerns. In connecting the critical texts we read this week, I would like to turn my attention to the notion of social memory and how it addresses the simultaneous, yet geographically distant, revolutions.

While I believe it is highly beneficial to focus on one year like 1968 in order to create a cohesive global vision, it’s important to keep in mind how we are limited by our current environment. Elaborating the notion of a “social framework of memory” established by Maurice Halbwachs, Sarah Waters emphasizes the relationship between the present moment and a social or historical memory: “The memories we have and the form they take are strongly influenced by the present and by the social context that we inhabit. Memory is constructed in time and space but always by social groups. It is the social group to which an individual belongs that determines what is memorable and what our memory brings to mind in the present” (6). In considering the impact on transnational studies, we must keep in mind the context in which we belong and how that affects our perspective. Therefore, in order to provide more than a cursory or surface level historical account, I think courses studying a global movement like 1968 should include texts and resources that provide a comprehensive account, specifically by incorporating texts from the country or culture being studied.

In addition to establishing a transnational social memory, Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth problematize the notion of building a comparative, transnational approach based on a nationalist paradigm. They uncover its inherent contradictions:

It aims at presenting information on the history of the various national protest movements to facilitate comparative studies, on the multifaceted transnational aspects of the protest movements to gain a deeper understanding of the similarities between the various national movements, and on the common narratives and cultures of memory to further the discussion on the consequences and relevance of domestic protest in the various countries as well as Europe as a whole. (2)

Reading between the lines, I think they are successful in bringing to light that even though there are cross-cultural similarities, the specific domestic circumstances represent an always present limitation that must be addressed. However, the emergence of a global popular culture provided an avenue in establishing a toolbox for surpassing or deconstructing these limitations: “A global popular culture, inspired by new aesthetics emerging in art, music, film, architecture, graphic design, and fashion, joined with hippie ideologies and lifestyles and melted into a set of symbolic forms, which became an infinite resource of mobilization in both the East and the West” (Klimke and Scharloth 6). Returning to the title of Kurlansky’s text, 1968 was the year that literally “rocked the world” as evident with the pop culture impact. Even thinking about more recent social or political protests, we will find music and artistic symbols being used transnationally from 1968.

The aforementioned texts, along with the others that we read for this week’s class, effectively portray that basing a transnational study on a single year will encounter many limitations. However, I think they are successful in showing that countries around the globe were not only experiencing similar political and social discontent but also responding in comparable ways, which is extremely beneficial in establishing transnational connections.

Kurlansky, Mark. 1968: The Year that Rocked the World. New York: Random House, Inc., 2005. Print.

When I first saw the animated film adaptation Persepolis in theaters in 2007 (see trailer), I was thrilled to finally see a highly commercialized story depicting the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath, which many of my friends and family in Iran have been coming to terms with for many years. Although the film is a faithful adaptation of the graphic novel, the text allows readers to pause and reflect upon certain images, thereby allowing them to animate these images themselves.

In Persepolis, Satrapi describes her personal history as a middle class Iranian woman who experiences the effects of a post-revolutionary transnationalism as she migrates across Iranian and European borders and attempts to explore and test the boundaries of identity expression within the boundaries of the state. The graphic novel form allows her to tell this story in a unique way because she can illustrate the figuratively and artistically black-and-white dichotomies in Iran and Europe during the 1980s, juxtapose simultaneous elements of brutal honesty and playfulness within select images, and explain a complex political history in a series of snapshots with small amounts of text.

Satrapi hooks her readers with her first chapter, “The Veil,” which introduces an image that I believe many people imagine when they think of Iran: women in veils. As a viewer, I am struck by these initial images of frowning young girls with white faces emerging from black veils. Further, on page 6, Satrapi includes the image of herself as a young girl split in half: on the left side is a girl with short hair, a long-sleeve top, and the gears and tools of progress in the background, while the right side depicts her in a black veil with what appears to be traditional or even religious imagery in the background. One would not see such visually drastic polarizations of lightness and darkness, or modernity and traditionalism, in a photograph or film of women in Iran wearing the veil. Through the graphic novel form, however, she is able to weave these images in ways that tell her story of this split in identity without relying solely on words or stand-alone images to convey her thoughts. I must note that, while I think such images are powerful and productive for her narrative, they can also be limiting, as the viewer only sees the solid black against solid white and cannot imagine more colorful, diversified images of veiled women in post-revolutionary Iran, such as this image from Iranian New Wave filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s 1987 film Where Is the Friend’s Home?

Iranian schoolchildren in “Where is the Friend’s Home?” (1987)

Satrapi effectively utilizes these black-and-white scenes to convey her transnational reality later on in the graphic novel, when she spends time in Austria. For example, in the chapter “The Soup,” there is one strip of images that shows how her caretakers, Zozo and her husband, Houshang, saw their lives change drastically after moving from Iran to Vienna. In one image, Zozo is a smiling secretary in Iran, and in the next, she is a frowning hairdresser in Vienna; in another image, Houshang is a smiling CEO in Iran, and in the next, “he was nothing” in Austria (157). Thus, in just four pictures with two- or three-line captions, Satrapi is able to capture the hardships of the transnational Iranian migrant in a way that would be formed and communicated differently if conveyed through other media, such as a text-based novel or documentary film.

Through the graphic novel form, Satrapi also has the advantage of being able to convey multiple images simultaneously, with multiple moods. For example, she includes one scene where children and their mothers shop in a sparse grocery store during a time of growing food shortages in Iran. While the mothers are in one corner of the scene, lamenting about how the increase in the number of refugees in Tehran has affected this food shortage, the children are in another part of the image, laughing about a bean joke (92). In this way, Satrapi juxtaposes a brutal reality of the effects of transnational migration on the middle as well as lower classes in the aftermath of a major conflict in Iran, while also showing the playful childhood innocence that still lingers during this difficult time.

Finally, the graphic novel form allows Satrapi to take many liberties in her portrayal of the political history of Iran. Because she can only capture her situation through images and small amounts of text, she is able to summarize key events in ways that the reader can easily digest the history. For instance, in her chapter, “The Sheep,” she depicts the crux of revolutionary motivations and the liminal, transnational space of the transitional Iranian state in five images depicting a conversation between Marjane’s father and uncle. Her uncle says, “In a country where half the population is illiterate and you cannot unite the people around Marx, the only thing that can really unite them is a nationalism or a religious ethic,” and her father replies that the elections in favor of the Islamic Republic must have been faked, because 99.9% of the people supposedly voted for it and he personally doesn’t know a single person who wanted it (62). I don’t think it would be appropriate to go into further detail in this graphic novel, because she can only explain so much in this form and she is depicting the situation as it was presented to her as a child. However, it is important that the reader understands this and realizes that this is just a small synopsis and particular point of view of how the revolutionaries became in favor of establishing an Islamic Republic following the collapse of the monarchy. After all, she does not go into much detail at all about Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise to power and his ability to strategically unite revolutionary protesters across several key demographics to call for the overthrow of Shah Reza Pahlavi.

If Persepolis as a retelling of political history appeals to you, I would highly recommend reading the 9/11 Report in the graphic novel form. For me, this text allowed me to understand a national history I witnessed and was a part of in a way that I had not thought about before. You can read the first chapter here.

In Flexible Citizenship, Ong describes how transnationalism has influenced and changed how she views Chinese cultural identity. As a huaqiao Chinese, or individual of Chinese descent born overseas, Ong had always espoused an ambivalent, albeit idealistic view of her ancestral homeland. While she accepted that poverty and political oppression might exist, she also envisioned a “kinder, gentler Chinese people” than those she knew in the “diaspora,” a notion that had developed on account of Western modern history and themedia (42). Upon visiting China for the first time, Ong did not feel an authentic connection as initially hoped, but rather a profound sense of “alienation”, which was promoted on both sides of her cultural divide. While her Western friends criticized her for visiting places in South China that did not meet their view of what China should be, native Chinese discriminated against how Chinese she actually appeared. As an overseas Chinese, she was expected to embrace “Western modernity” and not dress as a “college student.” (43). In essence, Ong hoped to feel welcomed home in China, but was rather viewed as a foreigner.

Just as transnational notions of cultural identity in China allow Ong to experience dismay and alienation, particularly with regards to how one is perceived by others, so does the outcome of the Islamic Revolution on the protagonist in Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir Persepolis. As we shall see with various examples, the images present in this genre further emphasize how cultural identity is expressed and conveyed to a wider global audience.

In the opening pages of Persepolis, we meet 10 year old Marji, who has recently been made to wear a veil in school. Having grown up in a modernized, Westernized Iranian society, the notion of wearing a veil seems antiquated and senseless. The opening images of Marji’s unhappy school portrait coupled with flashbacks of her class mocking the veil highlight this initial alienation.  As we progress to the second page, we see that her identity up to then had been cultivated by a secular French education espousing Western values.

Yet, with the dismissal of the “capitalist system” in favor of a “cultural revolution”, these images introduce how required gender separation and new attire for Muslim women shape Marji’s eventual perception of herself as an Iranian woman at home and abroad (particularly as she transitions between Iran and Europe). Eventually, as we learn, the enforced dress code and detachment from Western culture lead Marji to acts of cultural defiance, which are detailed throughout the novel. In one instance, the posters of Kim Wild and Iron Maiden received as gifts from her parents inspire her to wear American fashion in addition to her veil, which causes her trouble with the “Guardian of the Revolution” (Satrapi 131-133). In another example, a sequence depicting a confrontation between Marji and her school principal over further fashion infractions demonstrate the societal clash of Western influences on the dress expectations for Muslim women. The anger shown by Marji, particularly as the principal attempts to take her bracelet, and the act of Marji covering her ears when she is informed of her expulsion further highlight this (143).

Overall, with both Ong and Satrapi, we see how transnationalism enables perceived notions of cultural identity to evolve. While Ong initially feels alienated from her Chinese cultural identity upon visiting her ancestral homeland because she, as a huaqiao, does not espouse the “modern West”, Marji feels isolated in her Iranian homeland because the previous culture that she had known, has been limited. Instead of viewing these dilemmas in cultural identity as binary, however, the written and visual responses of Ong and Satrapi demonstrate diverse perspectives and challenge us to think beyond defined borders. In particular, the images of Iranian history in Satrapi’s graphic memoir which are interpreted by global audiences, the multiple translations of Satrapi’s text into different languages, and its recent film adaption further attest to this spirit.

In our class meetings thus far, we’ve often returned to the concept of transnationalism, discussing the vocabulary of the transnational and what kind of an experience we are describing when we talk about transnationalism. One idea that we have returned to is that of simultaneity. Transnationalism is a not a story, or a phenomenon experienced as a step-by-step process. In real lives, the transnational exists because of the all-at-once, uncontainable nature of people, products, cultures, histories, and imagination. These all exist at the same time around the globe, and occur both at the same time and in the same place within the individual consciousness. In Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, the visual form of the graphic novel contributes to Satrapi’s ability to represent the simultaneous, placeless nature of transnationalism in ways that a purely linguistic narrative form could not. As an English student, I’ve been trained to see the complexities of the text and the various ways authors use language to communicate multiple and even conflicting messages in their works. While reading the graphic novel, however, I was most often struck by the extra-lingual, information that was not only communicated by the drawings rather than the text, but in particular information that could only be communicated by the images, because it went beyond the text’s capacity for signification. I believe these extra-lingual messages are essential to the representation of transnationalism in Persepolis.

One way Satrapi mobilizes visual imagery to more vividly express transnationalism is by representing meaning with blank space. An unlikely frame emphasized this strategy to me: that of the before and after comparison of Marjane’s hairy and shaved skin (274). In this frame, Marjane’s hairy skin is represented by a rectangular swatch that is covered in hair (“Me before.”). Alongside that image is a completely blank rectangle that Satrapi writes is “Me after” (274). On a surface level, this makes sense; the hair is present in one image, while the next shows it removed from Marjane’s now smooth and blank skin. Beyond the surface, however, this frame struck me in its use of blank space to convey meaning, prompting me to think about Satrapi’s use of this device throughout her graphic novel. I was especially interested in the difference that this use of blank space highlighted between textual and graphic representation. While blank spaces appear in text to indicate divisions between words, paragraphs, and sections, blank space cannot, in prose, represent part of the body, or the removal of hair. Yet in this black-and-white work of fairly uncomplicated illustrations, blank spaces often represent important parts of the story. For example, blank background space is present in Satrapi’s illustrations of Iran, Austria, Turkey, and Spain. By making the nothing of blank space represent physical spaces in her illustrations, Satrapi creates a sense of nonspatial places. While the illustrations represent real places, comparing their shared negative spaces demonstrates that they all lack fixed or isolated location as it is relative to the people in those spaces. The only times when spatial location is truly defined is when it is at its most abstract and meaningless, such as on the map of the Middle East that Marjane and her parents see on television in Madrid (78). The map presented in the broadcast clearly defines borders, yet such a representation of space is as meaningless to the individuals moving across and within those borders as the Spanish report that the Satrapis cannot understand. From within the borders of a country, or of a frame in the graphic novel, place lacks national definition. The blank spaces that represent walls, skies, and ground, the very points of orientation by which one might ascertain location and relation to one’s surroundings, are indistinguishable. Thus nothingness comes to represent location, and in doing so, enacts the same dismantling of local orientation that simultaneity of location effects in transnational experience.

The representation of simultaneity is accommodated especially well in Persepolis not only through the extra-lingual expression of meaning through nothingness, but also in the graphic novel’s capacity to bring elements together in single frames. When Satrapi presents frames that represent, for example, the influence of Britain, the propaganda of the Iranian government, and the intimate space of the family home all in one simultaneously accessed image, these elements are experienced as contemporaneous (83). The frame illustrates that such forces exist all at once and in shared spaces, both physically and internally in individual experience. Their relations are complex, the result of multidirectional tension and simultaneous interpretation and reinterpretation in the context of one another. To represent such nontemporal and nonspatial presence with the inherently temporal form of language is a daunting prospect. Thus, I believe Satrapi’s placement of transnational messages, individuals, and products on the equal and displaced footing of her graphic frames is another way she utilizes the graphic novel to represent transnationalism in a more lifelike manner than she could have achieved through language alone. As a final image of Satrapi’s use of images to displace, level, and merge transnational elements, I consider the frame that depicts Marjane’s and her parents’ trip to Italy and Spain (77). Perched on a magic carpet and surrounded by the swirls that often indicate Marjane’s imagination at work, the three are simultaneously in Italy, Spain, and the nowhere space of Marjane’s mind. Buildings that may represent both Spanish and Italian architecture and landmarks bracket the interior, where a dark haired woman twists among the strands of Marjane’s imagination, perhaps embodying one culture, perhaps two, perhaps more. Like the Satrapis, she is entangled in the transnational nowhere and everywhere. The evacuation of fixed location, visual simultaneity of national symbols, and merging of individual consciousness and multiple cultural experiences in this frame exemplify how the form of the graphic novel amplifies Satrapi’s figuration of the transnational. In Persepolis, transnationalism is presented as a placeless, timeless, uncontainable phenomenon that can only be experienced all at once, just as Marjane is at once, and inseparably “a westerner in Iran, an Iranian in the west” (272).

Is global feminism really productive, or even global, if it reduces the real experiences of women outside the West to marginal notes?  Ella Shohat problematizes global feminism in her piece by claiming that too much focus on Western feminism, whether deliberate or not, has created an “overarching feminist master narrative” (1270).  There are two issues involved in the way global feminism is viewed, she suggests.  The first is this focus on the West, which is pervasive even if the West is geographically uninvolved in the area being discussed and uses the West as the baseline for feminist ideals in parts of the world that are completely different in many ways.  The second, she says, has to do with area studies and how they break the rest of the world up into regions and categories that may not reflect the people actually inhabiting certain spaces and may in fact allow for inaccurate generalization such as the idea that the “Middle Eastern” woman and the “third-world” woman are “passive victims lacking any form of agency” (1269).  From a transnational standpoint, such categorizations provide an incomplete picture of the people they are attempting to include not only because they generalize over (mostly) arbitrary geographical regions, but also because they ignore factors such as migration, immigration and intersectionality.  What about “Middle Eastern” women who live in United States, or for whom religion and race play a much larger role than is typical in Western discourse?  Shohat says she argues for “relational” feminism, which would allow for examination and discussion of feminism in specific parts of the world and in specific cultures as it relates to other “isms” and cultures, instead of invoking the West in all treatment of the subject.

Aihwa Ong puts it well when she describes anthropology’s organization of the world as “the West” and “the Rest” in Flexible Citizenship (30).  Ong’s book shows that some of what Shohat finds wrong with global feminism can also be applied to anthropology; specifically, both base their observations and expectations on Western ideals, which may have very little to do with what another culture wants for itself.  “Mass media continued to construct our world as a failed replica of the modern West,” she says of Malaysia (29).  “Although the comparative method is at the heart of anthropological knowledge, it has been a comparison that employs the West as a single measure of modernity against which other societies must be measured” (31).  While mass media and anthropology often seem to portray Southeast Asia as substandard because it is not as “modern” as the West, Ong suggests there is a fundamental difference in what Southeast Asia actually imagines as modern that may not have any bearing on Western ideals.  Not only is the region not conforming to those ideals, it may not even be considering them.  In this manner, utilizing the West as the cultural dipstick for how other parts of the world measure up is counter-productive and possibly even irrelevant, as Shohat suggests is also the case with modern global feminism.

In a quick search on transnational feminism I came across a 2009 TEDTalk given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a novelist from Nigeria.  The premise of the talk was “the danger of a single story,” the danger being that a single story can become an inaccurate or very limited view of a people, a country or a culture if it is repeated enough or remains the only story available.  While listening, I was reminded of Shohat’s remarks about the Eurocentric views of “Middle Eastern” women.  Frequently I think we do see these women generalized as so-called “passive victims” – debates over the hijab and whether or not it’s oppressive and degrading come to mind – or else somehow related to terrorists and radical Islam, and the problem with this is that their own personal stories and views are left out of the discussion.  “Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become,” Adichie says in her speech.

Adichie gives several examples of the “single story” being inadequate for understanding a culture or region, including a story about visiting the village of her family’s houseboy in Nigeria.  She talks about how she was constantly reminded by her parents that the boy’s family was poor and that they had nothing, but that upon meeting them she was shown a beautiful woven basket one of the sons had made, which took her by surprise.  “All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor,” she says.  “Their poverty was my single story of them.”

One of the reasons I enjoyed Persepolis so much is because it allows the reader to see Iran not only from the perspective of a young person, but also from her parents’ perspective.  After being exposed to a lot about Middle Eastern women but not much from them, the scene where Marji’s parents react to her wearing nail polish with pride rather than anger in particular sticks in my mind as significant because it expands the “single story” I have of Iranian culture, as well as of the lives of women in that region.  Under the narrative of the oppressed Middle Eastern woman that I’m familiar with, Marji putting on nail polish would have been unacceptable not only to society but also to her parents; her father especially would have not allowed her to do it.  From examples such as this I would agree with Shohat that relative, transnational feminism is necessary for constructing more complete and useful stories that do not attempt to force “the Rest” into Western molds.

Consider how the form of the graphic novel contributes to the way Persepolis figures transnationalism.

In a recent conversation with a French colleague, I learned that comic art (la bande dessinée) is considered to be the “ninth art” in the ranks of French art classification. Established recently in the latter portion of the 20^th century, the French system of art classification includes architecture, sculpture, visual arts, music, literature, scenic arts, cinema, photography, and lastly, la bande dessinée. That comic art is at the end of the list is unsurprising, considering the antiquity of the other forms, but it surprised me to find graphic work neatly in line with the others, standing all alone. Surely comic art could be placed with visual arts or literature, I thought. Having grown up on Archie Comics, I am no stranger to comic books or adolescent graphic novels, but I had never before read anything like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis as an adult. From the beginning, I was enthralled in the story and hooked on this newfound (to me) genre of expression.

In the introduction, Satrapi* gives a brief history of Iran and the many conquests the country has suffered, both internally and externally. She mentions ancient invasions, as well as the twentieth century British embargo on oil exports. Though many devastating events in Iran were instigated by Western influence, the country is not subject to the typical colonial/postcolonial classification frequently associated with Western powers and their former dependencies. The transnational approach allows the story to unfold and overlap in complicated ways. As a medium, the graphic novel is a compilation of elements. In the case of Persepolis, Satrapi mixes studio art and literary storytelling to communicate the tale of her young self growing up during the Iranian Islamic Revolution.  The title evokes the ancient Persian city, but the plot is modern. Already, two binaries collide, pushing the reader to reflect upon how the past influences the future and is represented in it.

To read about Marjane’s development as an individual is to witness it from her perspective. As an author, Satrapi is able to manipulate each scene by representing space and distance by how she places her figures in the case and in drawing a variety of shots—close up, medium, long, high and low angle, etc. (I am forced to use film vocabulary here, as I do not possess a visual art lexicon). The exclusive use of black and white allows for no in-between, no gray space. Yet, Satrapi somehow manifests texture and change. Though the images are a flat binary of color, the subject matter itself relies on movement and displacement. The narration and dialogue carry the reader through protests, historical details, social upheaval, and cross border migrations. Through the images, the reader makes a visual and imaginary connection to what is written in the text. While each scene may be analyzed individually, each page makes a unit that continues and connects the story holistically. As an art form, Satrapi’s graphic novel allows for wider readership, or viewership, as one need not read all of the dialogue in order to understand content. Moreover, in choosing a Western language (French) in which to originally publish the work, Satrapi exposes a typically censured perspective to people all throughout the globe.

In the introduction to Flexible Citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality, Aihwa Ong writes in detail on the split identities of multiple-passport holders, or the division between “state-imposed identity and personal identity caused by political upheavals, migration, and changing global markets” (2). The question of the passport recurs throughout Persepolis, not only to convey the difficulty in obtaining one in 1980s Iran, but also to express the very identity breach Ong refers to. Over halfway through the novel in the section labeled “The Vegetable”, Satrapi documents her attempts to “assimilate” and the fear of distancing herself from her Iranian culture after living in Austria for one year.  The dominating image is of Marjane herself, colored entirely black except her face and hands, physically stretched as though she needs to represent her body as a caricature in order to portray her feelings of conflicted identity (193).  Later in the section, Marjane denies her nationality and claims to be French. Unfortunately for her, her accent says otherwise.

Though Marjane is certainly not French, Marc’s questioning of her identity demonstrates a reluctance to accept the French culture as one comprised of multiple identities. Does having an accent automatically signify the incapacity to belong to a culture or to claim identity?  Later, Marjane overhears the other students gossiping about her false claim to French identity and explodes, finally owning her Iranian identity with furious pride. “For the first time in a year, I felt proud,” Satrapi writes (197).  To designate importance, the text grows in size and the font slightly modifies. This is the only time the dialogue or narration text changes in size, thus clearly outlining an important theme of the work: “I am Iranian and proud of it!” Marjane screams (197). Not only does the exclamation point mark the passion of the phrase, the size distinctly sets it apart from the rest of the novel. It becomes its own image, sharing the spotlight with Marjane’s acceptance of herself and her transnational identity.

*Throughout this post, I use the author’s last name when referring to her authorial role. I use her first name, Marjane, when referring to the narrator/main character of the novel.

The reader’s perception of transnational elements in Persepolis results from its configuration as a graphic novel. Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian-French author, writing a graphic novel in France to relate her childhood in Iran is in itself a product of transnationalism. Persepolis is divided in sections (The Veil, The Bicycle, The Water Cell, etc.), which display a layout that consists of a series of scenes separated by white spaces, contiguous, but still separated. The apparent fragmented structure is unified by Marjane’s objective to show that Iran is more than fanaticism, fundamentalism, and terrorism. In the introduction of Persepolis Marjane explicitly presents this as her motivation to write the novel. In this sense, the components of the graphic novel interact to form a single unity. It is a process analogous to that of transnationalism, which is determined by the interaction of components of culture originated by a diverse range of factors and motivations. After reading Satrapi’s graphic novel, we are able to interpret and assign a meaning to it. Likewise, the flow of culture that results from transnationalism is interpreted and adopted by its recipients.

For me, the genre has had a transnational impact, since it fostered the willingness to try and accept cultural products from other countries. When I was in middle school manga from Japan was very popular among the male student body. This was in Mexico in the late ‘90s. Some of the most popular were manga that we consumed in the form of anime, which aired on television. Nonetheless, everyone was trying to get the latest volumes of the manga to find out what would happen next and be ahead of the anime that showed in TV. There was a complete network of economic transactions (trading, buying, selling) related to these comics carried out by students. The manga were obtained in flea markets and other irregular shops in a bigger city about 20 miles from ours and then were distributed at school. Sometimes the translation from the Japanese was terrible and we had to figure out the plot of the manga by looking at the pictures. In addition, the effort, performed by some translators, to westernize the reading direction created more problems than it solved. Nonetheless, we enjoyed them and learned from them too. I learned most of Greek mythology from reading Saint Seiya. Coincidentally, Marjane learns about philosophy from a comic book.  

As I stated above, my interest in manga led to an openness to accept cultural manifestations from other parts of the world.  During my third year of middle school (middle school is three years in Mexico) my interests began to shift towards music. We were still engaged with manga at school, but now music was our main focus. It followed the same pattern of distribution as manga. This flow of culture through music is similar as Marjane’s experience portrayed in Persepolis. Radio stations, or at least the radio stations my friends and I listened, played mainly rock from the United States and Britain (Regional or norteño music was not as popular among teens as it is now. It became more popular in most age-groups after immigrants returning to Mexico brought along this genre of music, which was popular in some regions of the country, but was even more popular in Mexican communities in the United States). In our quest to find music from other parts of the world, we began to listen to nordic metal. We were listening to bands such as Nightwish (they are coming to Silver Spring in May, by the way) or Tristania. Sigur Rós was not metal, but was perceived as the new Radiohead (I’m not sure how we reached such comparison) and people were eager to get their hands on their music. In contrast to Marjane, I could get the music without major problems and/or consequences. Although, now that I think about it, we did depend on products from abroad to listen to music in the form of electronics bought in the United States. It was common to have products from the United States at home. My family has lived in both countries for several generations so we were always surrounded by products manufactured here.

The process that I have described is analogous to Marjane’s experience. She was surrounded by fragments of culture from abroad.