Co-sponsored by the American University of Beirut Palestine Land Studies Center and the University of Oregon Comics & Cartoon Studies.
Dr. Michael Fakhri, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, and renowned artist Omar Khouri have produced the first UN human rights report that uses graphic reportage. The day before Dr. Fakhri presents the report—titled “Starvation and the right to food, with an emphasis on the Palestinian people’s food sovereignty”—to the General Assembly, he and Khouri will appear in conversation with graphic journalist Shay Mirk and FIAN International right to food advocate Emily Mattheisen, moderated by Kate Kelp-Stebbins of the University of Oregon Comic & Cartoon Studies program. The panel will address the power of comics to convey communities’ horrors and hopes, focusing on the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
This event will be held in-person in Manhattan at the Church Center for the United Nations, 777 UN Plaza (entrance on 44th Street and the corner of First Avenue). You can also sign up to attend remotely via livestream on the registration page.
The Church Center is an ADA Accessible building. The event is on the 2nd floor and accessible by elevator. If you have any questions or requests for accommodations, please reach out to events@jewishcurrents.org.
Michael Fakhri is a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law where he teaches courses on human rights, food law, development, and commercial law. He is also the director of the Food Resiliency Project in the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center. He was appointed Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council in March 2020.
Kate Kelp-Stebbins is associate professor and co-director of the Comics Studies Program in the Department of English at the University of Oregon and affiliated faculty in New Media and Culture as well as Women’s and Gender Studies. Her books include the monograph How Comics Travel: Translation, Publication, Radical Literacies, and the edited volume The Art of the News: Comics Journalism. She is the curator of the traveling museum exhibit The Art of the News: Comics Journalism, which debuted at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in September 2021.
Omar Khouri is a multi- and interdisciplinary artist working with painting, comics, film, video games and music, to name a few. In 2006, he co-founded Samandal Comics, the first experimental comics collective in the Middle East. He is co-author and illustrator of the first graphic report to be included in an official UN Human Rights report. He lives and works in North Lebanon.
Emily Mattheisen is a right to food and food systems practitioner at FIAN International, the international human rights organizations supporting struggles for the right to food and nutrition. She has specific experience supporting the introduction of grassroots voices into monitoring processes and policy assessments, and is supporting FIAN’s work in crisis situations.
Sarah Shay Mirk is a graphic journalist, editor, and teacher. They are the author of Guantanamo Voices (Abrams, 2020), an illustrated oral history of Guantanamo Bay prison, and the forthcoming Creating Nonfiction Comics: The Power of Graphic Journalism, co-written with Eleri Harris. They are a volunteer editor of the collective Cartoonists for Palestine.
The
Palestine Land Studies Center at the American University of
Beirut is a catalyst for interdisciplinary research and a global
hub for grassroots investigation and dialogues around the question of
land and population studies in Palestine.
The University of Oregon Comics & Cartoon Studies offers an interdisciplinary minor that presents students with an international, historical, and critical perspective on the art of comics, from editorial cartoons to comic books to graphic novels.