One of the great challenges of teaching in the post-9/11 United States is contending with persistent stereotypes and misinformation about Islam, "Arabs," "Arab Americans," and the "Middle East" within student bodies. Since 2003 the authors have been employing Iranian author Marjane Satrapi's work in the classroom as a way to begin discussions about race, terrorism, and war, and particularly about how these issues are gendered. Her critically acclaimed graphic novel/memoir "Persepolis," which relates how she grew up in Tehran during the fall of the U.S.-backed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi monarchy, the rise of the Islamic regime, and the advent of the Iran-Iraq war, has sold over a million copies worldwide and has been taught in hundreds of classrooms around the nation. In this essay, the authors share some of their insights from teaching "Persepolis" in a variety of classes at the University of Maine at Augusta and at Bates College over the last few years and provide some paradigms that may help others who are considering adopting such a text. The authors have found that Satrapi's "Persepolis" offers a rich opportunity to engage their students in an expanded understanding of the gendered dynamics of war and an opportunity to enter into the transnational project of transversal politics. (Contains 5 notes.)