Queer Theory

Many of Virginia Woolf’s books from the 1920’s and early 1930’s feature characters with queer longings. The mock biography Orlando (1928) was written for Vita Sackville-West, Woolf’s lover, and exemplifies her work’s queerness. Beginning male but waking up one morning female, Orlando shakes up fixed ontologies of gender identity and sexual orientation, anticipating Sara Ahmed’s analysis of queer spatiality and Elizabeth Freeman’s examination of queer temporality. Orlando’s concerns are reinflected in the work of contemporary English novelist Jeanette Winterson and invite transnational comparisons to twentieth-century Islamic writing, such as the works of Indian writer Iqbalunnisa Hussain, Egyptian novelist Nawal El Saadawi, and Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun. Crossing borders of gender, nation, and time, Orlando and other of Woolf’s writings ask readers to engage the divergences and continuities between what we now call feminist, lesbian, queer, and transgender theories.

Ben Jelloun’s Point of View on Racism in the Essay Le Racisme Expliqueé À Ma Fille

Moroccan literature has been growing since the 1950s, when Morocco was still under French occupation. The big themes that commonly appear in Moroccan literature are the issues of colonialism and racism. One Moroccan writer whose work speaks a lot about racism is Tahar Ben Jelloun. This article aims to analyze one of Ben Jelloun's works entitled Le Racisme expliquée à ma fille. The essay discusses a father and his 10-year-old daughter about racism and what makes people became racist. In the essay, some words are in bold, and these words are mostly phenomena or social events related to the dark history of world civilization due to racism. This study used a qualitative method by using Genette's focalization theory and opposition theory by Greimas markers. The analysis results show that the concept of racism in this essay is conveyed through the father's focalization even though the essay's form is a question and answer between the father and daughter. The selection of forms of dialogue with father and daughter figures can be seen as a narrative strategy to convey the implicit meaning to combat racism. Anti-racism education in the family is Tahar Ben Jelloun's reflection on solutions to racism in the world.

PENYALAHGUNAAN KEKUASAAN DALAM NOVEL KORUPSI KARYA TAHAR BEN JELLOUN (KAJIAN SOSIOLOGI SASTRA)

Penelitian ini bertujuan mendiskripsikan penyalahgunaan kekuasaan dalam novel Korupsi karya Tahar Ben Jelloun. Jenis penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif. Data penelitian ini adalah data tulis berupa kata dan kalimat yang mengandung persoalan penyalahgunaan kekuasaan, sedangkan sumber data dalam penelitian ini adalah novel Korupsi karya Tahar Ben Jelloun. menginterpretasi data secara deskriptif menggunakan pendekatan sosiologi sastra. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat bentuk-bentuk penyalahgunaan kekuasaan dalam novel Korupsi karya Tahar Ben Jelloun yaitu: (1) penggelapan uang; (2) penyuapan; (3) korupsi; (4) pemerasan; (5) kemerosotan moral; (6) hegemoni kelas sosial; (7) marginalitas; dan (8) resistensi. Simpulan penelitian ini adalah 1) hegemoni yang terjadi pada novel ini tidak hanya sebatas dominasi kekuasaan suatu kelas sosial, tetapi juga terjadi atas dasar untuk perubahan; 2) hegemoni kekuasaan kelas sosial pada novel Korupsi adalah penindasan oleh kelas penguasa terhadap kaum subaltern; 3) hegemoni moral merupakan sikap untuk melindungi diri; 4) marginalitas dalam novel Korupsi, yaitu pendiskriminasian terhadap orang-orang miskin.