Arab Animation

Explores how Arab animations have been deeply engaged in the making and remaking of religious and political identities

• The first in-depth study of the institutional and infrastructural background of animation production in the Arab world
• Explores the position of animation production in national media and cultural industries
• Examines how Arab producers and artists have used the animation format to mediate national, pan-Arab, Islamic and revolutionary identitiesExploring political and religious identity in Arab animation

By textually analysing around 40 productions from the 1930s until recently, this critical study explores how animated cartoons of the Arab world have been used to promote various notions of identity and mediate political and religious messages.

Omar Sayfo explores how Arab animations, as cultural and media texts, have been deeply engaged in the making and remaking of religious and political identities. By analysing animation production in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, the Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, this book seeks to demonstrate how rival notions of national, pan-Arab and Islamic identities have been advocated, challenged and fused by Arab animated cartoons.

From the 1930s until the recent spread of online animations, animated cartoon production in the Arab world was the privilege of individuals and institutions with strong links to academic, media and political elites. These elites had maintained both direct and indirect authority over production in a number of ways, including funding, regulation and censorship. Arab animated films and series thus became a legitimate focus of well-defined cultural policies and, in many cases, even of political and religious agendas.