From Cairo, Jonathan will focus on examining connections between cultural currents and political change across the region. He has been living and working in Egypt since 2012, where he is a contributing editor of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, a policy journal published by the American University in Cairo. From 2012 to 2013, he was a Fulbright fellow researching political cartoons in Egypt. He previously served as a program associate for the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force in Washington, DC, and as assistant editor of Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel. A frequent analyst on Public Radio International, he has contributed to Guernica, Harper’s, Modern Painters, The New York Review Daily, The New Yorker, The Paris Review Daily, New York Magazine, Nieman Reports, and others. His research on Egyptian satire has been cited by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Nation, New Statesman, Reuters, and TIME, as well a variety of international news outlets. A cartoonist himself, he blogs about Arabic comics and caricature at oumcartoon.tumblr.com.
Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution
Jonathan Guyer has contributed a chapter to Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution, a forthcoming book from Routledge. His chapter focuses on the translation of Arabic political cartoons. Here is Jonathan’s abstract: This chapter reflects critically on the translation of Arabic political cartoons, both in broad and narrow terms. The questions I address include ...
Cairo Art Crime: George Bahgory and the Missing Pieces
July 11, 2015 A source in Beirut tipped me off. Somebody had stolen paintings—two hundred paintings—from Egyptian artist George Bahgory. Five months earlier, I attended the opening of Bahgory’s retrospective. Scores of elegant Cairenes crunched toast with black caviar. They roamed through six rooms of paintings, gazing at six decades of work. In the main hall, Bahgory ...
A Parking Garage in the Square
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Based in Cairo, I am examining media and visual culture in Egypt and across the Middle East. I have researched comics and satire in the region since 2012. Spending long evenings with cartoonists grappling with the aftermath of the revolution, I discovered that pop culture captures significant and subversive narratives that are often ...
Jonathan Guyer in the Media
In the wake of the tragic Charlie Hebdo attack, newly appointed ICWA Fellow Jonathan Guyer has become a media sensation. A specialist on Arabic cartoons and culture, Jonathan is ideally suited to supply a unique Middle East-based perspective on developments. Most recently Jonathan authored a piece for Guernica Magazine. He has written several other articles, including ...
Introducing Jonathan Guyer
Based in Cairo, Jonathan’s Fellowship will be focused on art, mass media, and satire. Watch our video to find out more about Jonathan and his plans for his ICWA Fellowship.