Crossing Lines: A Conversation on Feminist Comics in the Arab World and Latin America

MECILA meets MECAM
Crossing Lines: A Conversation on Feminist Comics in the Arab World and Latin America

19 August 2026 | 10:00–17:00

CEBRAP: Rua Morgado de Mateus, 615 – Vila Mariana, São Paulo

Comics have become an important space for aesthetic experimentation and political intervention by feminist artists across the Global South. Bringing together scholars working on comics from Latin America and the Arab world, this conversation creates a forum for exchange on feminist graphic practices, visual cultures, activism, and transregional networks.

Reflecting the shared research interests of MECILA and MECAM, the event explores comics as sites of knowledge production that challenge hegemonic frameworks and foster new forms of South–South dialogue. Particular attention will be paid to how feminist artists engage with questions of gender, coloniality, mobility, memory, and social justice while developing new visual languages and forms of political imagination. The discussion will also consider the growing importance of digital platforms and social media, which have enabled emerging comic cultures to circulate across borders, build transnational communities, and create new spaces for feminist collaboration and public engagement.

By placing Latin America and the Arab world in direct conversation, the event seeks to strengthen scholarly exchange across regions and disciplines and to lay the groundwork for future collaborative research on feminist visual cultures across the Global South.

Register here: https://rcloud.uni-koeln.de/index.php/apps/forms/s/RPsePFZBcZ76PeyGM7FtoB2E

Organisers

Rasha Chatta (Freie Universität Berlin; MECAM fellow 2021)

Jasmin Wrobel (Ruhr-Universität Bochum; MECILA thematic fellow 2025)

Co-PIs of the VolkswagenStiftung-funded project Graphic Feminisms from the Global South: Comparative Perspectives on Comics from the Arab Mediterranean and Latin America.

Participants

• Cintia Lima Crescêncio (FUABC)
• Daniela Marino (Unisanta, Univesp)
• Karoline Caetano Brito (Unifesp)
• Javiera Irribarren Ortiz (SLC)
• Rasha Chatta (FU Berlin)
• Jasmin Wrobel (RUB)

Programme

10.00-10.15     Introduction

10.15-11.00     Cintia Lima Crescêncio: “Breve panorama histórico das mulheres autoras de quadrinhos e humor gráfico no Brasil (1970-1990)”

11.00-11.45     Daniela Marino: “Critérios inclusivos para análise de histórias em quadrinhos produzidas por mulheres”

Coffee break

12.00-12.45     Karoline Caetano Brito: “Entre autoria e representação: um olhar sobre questões de gênero nos quadrinhos de temática indígena”

12.45-13.30     Javiera Irribarren Ortiz: “Structural Gaps and Emerging Pathways: Researching Latin American Speculative Comics from Feminist Perspectives”

Lunch 

14.45-15.30     Rasha Chatta: “Sketching Feminisms in Contemporary Arab Graphic Narratives”

15.30-16.15     Jasmin Wrobel: “Comics and/as Intersectional Theory in Latinx Comics”

16.15-17.00     Final discussion / Discussão final