Book Review: Animation in the Middle East: Practice and Aesthetics from Baghdad to Casablanca

Animation in the Middle East: Practice and Aesthetics from Baghdad to Casablanca, edited by Stefanie Van de Peer.

Abstract

Animated films produced in the Middle East and North Africa tend to be overlooked by western scholars, who they may only be familiar with a few titles or nations from this part of the world. Stefanie Van de Peer’s edited book, Animation in the Middle East: Practice and Aesthetics from Baghdad to Casablanca, reveals a dichotomy whereby, despite their complicated political, cultural, and religious environment, animation from Middle Eastern and North African nations managed to represent important and popular works. By tracking each country’s development in animation, Van de Peer argues that animation is quite a popular art form in the area, where is widely practiced. Not only do local audiences prefer their own national animation, but also, many animators and artists use the medium to explore and identify their (trans)national identity. In this book review, I introduce the chapters in the book and argue that this edited study is very useful for scholars who teach and study the animation history of the region.

* This article was published at Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 2023, vol. 10, no. 2.