Algerian imprints: ethical space in the work of Assia Djebar and Helene Cixous

This book explores the confluence of decadence and Orientalism since the mid-nineteenth century in French and Arabic writing. It demonstrates how French Orientalism set the terms of modernity for Arab and Muslim thinkers and writers, but also how the latter responded to and transformed these terms. The book argues that Orientalism is doubly decadent: it describes the supposedly inherent degeneration of the Semitic and the “Oriental,” and in so doing Orientalism attempts to contribute to the decay of these societies. Through comparative close readings of French, Francophone, and Arabic texts, the author outlines how notions and representations of decadence and decay during the colonial and postcolonial periods have in fact produced symbolic and social disintegration in parts of the Arab world. Part 1 of the book examines the role of philology, secularism, Islamic reformism, and colonial policy in the configurations of colonial modernity during the second half of the nineteenth century, focusing on the Arab East (or Mashreq) and Algeria. Part 2 turns to Maghreb to explore the ways that loss becomes nationalized and gendered in the postcolonial era and how Maghrebi writers engage with the legacy of Orientalist decadence to find ways beyond it. In the context of these questions, it offers analyses of work by a wide range of writers, including Ernest Renan, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Ahmed Faris al-Shidyaq, Farah Antun, Céline, Tahar Wattar, Tahir Djaout, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Yamina Méchakra, Assia Djebar, Hélène Cixous, Abdelwahab Meddeb, and Abdelkebir Khatibi.

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Brigitte Weltman-Aron, Algerian Imprints: Ethical the Work of Assia Djebar and Hélène Cixous

Irish Journal of French Studies ◽

10.7173/164913318825497982 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 221-223

Author(s):

Mireille Rebeiz

Keyword(s):

Assia Djebar ◽

Helene Cixous

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Introduction

The Performance of Listening in Postcolonial Francophone Culture ◽

10.5949/liverpool/9781786940827.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-20

Author(s):

Jennifer Solheim

Keyword(s):

Sound Studies ◽

Assia Djebar ◽

Helene Cixous ◽

Tahar Ben Jelloun ◽

Francophone Studies ◽

North African ◽

The Social ◽

French Republicanism ◽

The 1960S ◽

Definition Of

I introduce the call to listen, the term she has coined for the cultural phenomenon in French texts of North African and Middle East origins that portray characters and figures listening as a narrative strategy across cultural media to bring forth stories of marginalized experience. I also introduce sounding, the central methodologies in The Performance of Listening, which is situated in Francophone studies, performance studies, and to a smaller degree sound studies. An overview of the social, political, and cultural stakes of these works, which span from the 1960s through 2010, includes Tahar Ben Jelloun, Hélène Cixous, Assia Djebar, Franz Fanon, Michel Foucault, and J.M.G. LeClézio. Issues include feminism, the question and definition of Francophonie, French Republicanism (or universalism), laïcité, mixité, postcolonialism, and subalterity.

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