Brigitte Weltman-Aron
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172561
- eISBN:
- 9780231539876
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172561.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Born and raised in French Algeria, Assia Djebar and Hélène Cixous represent in their literary works signs of conflict and enmity, drawing on discordant histories so as to reappraise the political on ...
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Born and raised in French Algeria, Assia Djebar and Hélène Cixous represent in their literary works signs of conflict and enmity, drawing on discordant histories so as to reappraise the political on the very basis of dissensus. In a rare comparison of these authors’ writings, Algerian Imprints shows how Cixous and Djebar consistently reclaim for ethical and political purposes the demarcations and dislocations emphasized in their fictions. Their works affirm the chance for thinking afforded by marginalization and exclusion and delineate political ways of preserving a space for difference informed by expropriation and nonbelonging. Cixous’s inquiry is steeped in her formative encounter with the grudging integration of the Jews in French Algeria, while Djebar’s narratives concern the colonial separation of “French” and “Arab,” self and other. Yet both authors elaborate strategies to address inequality and injustice without resorting to tropes of victimization, challenging and transforming the understanding of the history and legacy of colonized space.Less
Born and raised in French Algeria, Assia Djebar and Hélène Cixous represent in their literary works signs of conflict and enmity, drawing on discordant histories so as to reappraise the political on the very basis of dissensus. In a rare comparison of these authors’ writings, Algerian Imprints shows how Cixous and Djebar consistently reclaim for ethical and political purposes the demarcations and dislocations emphasized in their fictions. Their works affirm the chance for thinking afforded by marginalization and exclusion and delineate political ways of preserving a space for difference informed by expropriation and nonbelonging. Cixous’s inquiry is steeped in her formative encounter with the grudging integration of the Jews in French Algeria, while Djebar’s narratives concern the colonial separation of “French” and “Arab,” self and other. Yet both authors elaborate strategies to address inequality and injustice without resorting to tropes of victimization, challenging and transforming the understanding of the history and legacy of colonized space.
Clarisse Zimra
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846317453
- eISBN:
- 9781846317187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317187.008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on Assia Djebar's Ces voix qui m'assiègent (1999), a collection of her critical essays, pieces that had, until then, not been readily accessible. The collection is the most ...
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This chapter focuses on Assia Djebar's Ces voix qui m'assiègent (1999), a collection of her critical essays, pieces that had, until then, not been readily accessible. The collection is the most conceptually challenging record to date as to the elaboration of her poetics. As such, it deserves translation into the many languages in which her fiction has already been translated.Less
This chapter focuses on Assia Djebar's Ces voix qui m'assiègent (1999), a collection of her critical essays, pieces that had, until then, not been readily accessible. The collection is the most conceptually challenging record to date as to the elaboration of her poetics. As such, it deserves translation into the many languages in which her fiction has already been translated.
Kathryn Lachman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781781380307
- eISBN:
- 9781781387290
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781380307.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines Said's theory of counterpoint in relation to Assia Djebar's novel Les Nuits de Strasbourg (1997). Said proposed musical counterpoint both as a strategy for rethinking the ...
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This chapter examines Said's theory of counterpoint in relation to Assia Djebar's novel Les Nuits de Strasbourg (1997). Said proposed musical counterpoint both as a strategy for rethinking the polarized hatred in the Middle East, and as a model on which a more worldly, inclusive and responsible practice of comparative literature could be founded. Djebar's novel employs counterpoint to place Franco-Algerian history within the context of an increasingly multicultural Europe in which communities are forced to make sense of multiple, competing histories. Through a reading of Djebar's work, this chapter offers a precise, textual approach for understanding how counterpoint plays out in contemporary fiction. It also traces the influence of counterpoint on subsequent critical theories.Less
This chapter examines Said's theory of counterpoint in relation to Assia Djebar's novel Les Nuits de Strasbourg (1997). Said proposed musical counterpoint both as a strategy for rethinking the polarized hatred in the Middle East, and as a model on which a more worldly, inclusive and responsible practice of comparative literature could be founded. Djebar's novel employs counterpoint to place Franco-Algerian history within the context of an increasingly multicultural Europe in which communities are forced to make sense of multiple, competing histories. Through a reading of Djebar's work, this chapter offers a precise, textual approach for understanding how counterpoint plays out in contemporary fiction. It also traces the influence of counterpoint on subsequent critical theories.
Jane Hiddleston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781846310317
- eISBN:
- 9781786945341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310317.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
‘Feminism and Women’s Identity’ discusses Djebar’s representation of womanhood and femininity in her work. It attempts to locate her position on feminism by comparing the writer’s disassociation from ...
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‘Feminism and Women’s Identity’ discusses Djebar’s representation of womanhood and femininity in her work. It attempts to locate her position on feminism by comparing the writer’s disassociation from women’s writing movements with the re-telling of the history of women in Algeria. The chapter also notes Djebar’s transcendence of conventional gender distinctions and labels, as well as her depiction of the political position of women in Algeria.Less
‘Feminism and Women’s Identity’ discusses Djebar’s representation of womanhood and femininity in her work. It attempts to locate her position on feminism by comparing the writer’s disassociation from women’s writing movements with the re-telling of the history of women in Algeria. The chapter also notes Djebar’s transcendence of conventional gender distinctions and labels, as well as her depiction of the political position of women in Algeria.
Stefanie Van de Peer
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748696062
- eISBN:
- 9781474434836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748696062.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This case study looks at French-Algerian author Assia Djebar, who made two little-known films. This chapter is an exploration of the limited but highly complex and challenging work of an important ...
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This case study looks at French-Algerian author Assia Djebar, who made two little-known films. This chapter is an exploration of the limited but highly complex and challenging work of an important pioneering North African woman. Algeria’s particularly complex historical and political experience of independence from France, its relationship with Islam and its war-torn historical reality, have determined the lacunae in creative production. As some of the only films to ever have been made by an Algerian woman, La Nouba (1978) and La Zerda (1982) are masterpieces of feminist and anti-colonialist filmmaking. La Nouba is an explicitly feminist work, a documentary interlaced with experimental, symbolic fragments referring to international trends in feminist filmmaking in the seventies. As scholars of Algerian cinema have stated, cinema in the country is steeped in amnesia, consisting of fictional efforts that look away from reality. This chapter frames Djebar’s films differently from previous readings, and draws more challenging conclusions with regard to her transnational identity and her approach to women. More than feminist films, they reveal the filmmaker’s struggle with her own diasporic identity.Less
This case study looks at French-Algerian author Assia Djebar, who made two little-known films. This chapter is an exploration of the limited but highly complex and challenging work of an important pioneering North African woman. Algeria’s particularly complex historical and political experience of independence from France, its relationship with Islam and its war-torn historical reality, have determined the lacunae in creative production. As some of the only films to ever have been made by an Algerian woman, La Nouba (1978) and La Zerda (1982) are masterpieces of feminist and anti-colonialist filmmaking. La Nouba is an explicitly feminist work, a documentary interlaced with experimental, symbolic fragments referring to international trends in feminist filmmaking in the seventies. As scholars of Algerian cinema have stated, cinema in the country is steeped in amnesia, consisting of fictional efforts that look away from reality. This chapter frames Djebar’s films differently from previous readings, and draws more challenging conclusions with regard to her transnational identity and her approach to women. More than feminist films, they reveal the filmmaker’s struggle with her own diasporic identity.
Jane Hiddleston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781846310317
- eISBN:
- 9781786945341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310317.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
In this first chapter, Hiddleston comments on the significance of expatriation and the memory of native lands in Djebar’s work. The chapter also introduces the recurring themes present in the text, ...
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In this first chapter, Hiddleston comments on the significance of expatriation and the memory of native lands in Djebar’s work. The chapter also introduces the recurring themes present in the text, including discussion of colonialism, Islamism, and the attempt at tracing sense of identity.Less
In this first chapter, Hiddleston comments on the significance of expatriation and the memory of native lands in Djebar’s work. The chapter also introduces the recurring themes present in the text, including discussion of colonialism, Islamism, and the attempt at tracing sense of identity.
Jane Hiddleston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781846310317
- eISBN:
- 9781786945341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310317.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
‘War, Memory and Postcoloniality’ explores Djebar’s process of reflection that gave rise to alternative modes of writing and describes this course of withdrawal and renewal as a movement that went on ...
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‘War, Memory and Postcoloniality’ explores Djebar’s process of reflection that gave rise to alternative modes of writing and describes this course of withdrawal and renewal as a movement that went on to influence the form of many of her works.Less
‘War, Memory and Postcoloniality’ explores Djebar’s process of reflection that gave rise to alternative modes of writing and describes this course of withdrawal and renewal as a movement that went on to influence the form of many of her works.
Jane Hiddleston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781846310317
- eISBN:
- 9781786945341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310317.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
‘Violence, Mourning and Singular Testimony’ explores the political influence in Djebar’s work from the 1990s. The chapter assesses the writer’s use of religious and political discourse in light of ...
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‘Violence, Mourning and Singular Testimony’ explores the political influence in Djebar’s work from the 1990s. The chapter assesses the writer’s use of religious and political discourse in light of feminist discussion and the upsurge of Islamist terrorism.Less
‘Violence, Mourning and Singular Testimony’ explores the political influence in Djebar’s work from the 1990s. The chapter assesses the writer’s use of religious and political discourse in light of feminist discussion and the upsurge of Islamist terrorism.
Patrick Crowley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846317453
- eISBN:
- 9781846317187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317187.009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter presents a reading of the travel writings of the nineteenth-century French painter Eugène Fromentin (1820–76), whose work is seen as having inaugurated French Algerian literature; and ...
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This chapter presents a reading of the travel writings of the nineteenth-century French painter Eugène Fromentin (1820–76), whose work is seen as having inaugurated French Algerian literature; and the work of the Algerian writer and trained historian, Assia Djebar (b. 1937), who, with the publication of L'Amour, la fantasia, began a quartet of novels that sought to represent Algeria in ways distinct from French and nationalist Algerian forms. It addresses the following questions: What kinds of relationship can exist between the postcolonial writer and the organon of ‘universal’ models that has been bequeathed? And what kind of nation is at stake? In asking these questions, the chapter focuses on the letter — the ‘form’ adopted by Fromentin to organize his travel narrative, his representation of Algeria; and it is a leitmotif within Djebar's L'Amour, la fantasia.Less
This chapter presents a reading of the travel writings of the nineteenth-century French painter Eugène Fromentin (1820–76), whose work is seen as having inaugurated French Algerian literature; and the work of the Algerian writer and trained historian, Assia Djebar (b. 1937), who, with the publication of L'Amour, la fantasia, began a quartet of novels that sought to represent Algeria in ways distinct from French and nationalist Algerian forms. It addresses the following questions: What kinds of relationship can exist between the postcolonial writer and the organon of ‘universal’ models that has been bequeathed? And what kind of nation is at stake? In asking these questions, the chapter focuses on the letter — the ‘form’ adopted by Fromentin to organize his travel narrative, his representation of Algeria; and it is a leitmotif within Djebar's L'Amour, la fantasia.
Debra Kelly
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853236597
- eISBN:
- 9781846312625
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846312625
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This book offers an in-depth study of the autobiographical writings of four twentieth-century writers from North Africa — Assia Djebar, Mouloud Feraoun, Abdelkébir Khatibi and Albert Memmi — as they ...
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This book offers an in-depth study of the autobiographical writings of four twentieth-century writers from North Africa — Assia Djebar, Mouloud Feraoun, Abdelkébir Khatibi and Albert Memmi — as they explore issues of language, identity and the individual's relationship to history. The book places these writers in a clearly defined theoretical context, introducing and contextualising each of the four through the application of postcolonial studies and literary theory on autobiography linked to close textual reading of their works. Avoiding both psychoanalytical theory and approaches concerned primarily with the writer's ‘testimony value’, the book concentrates instead on the poetic and literary qualities of each author's work, dwelling on the politics and poetics of identity, as well as the ethics and aesthetics of this literature. It includes clear discussions of key terms such as ‘postcolonial’, ‘Francophone’ and ‘autobiography’, which current academic discourse has rendered very complex and even opaque. The book includes a fascinating photograph of two stone tablets inscribed with Punic and Numidian scripts.Less
This book offers an in-depth study of the autobiographical writings of four twentieth-century writers from North Africa — Assia Djebar, Mouloud Feraoun, Abdelkébir Khatibi and Albert Memmi — as they explore issues of language, identity and the individual's relationship to history. The book places these writers in a clearly defined theoretical context, introducing and contextualising each of the four through the application of postcolonial studies and literary theory on autobiography linked to close textual reading of their works. Avoiding both psychoanalytical theory and approaches concerned primarily with the writer's ‘testimony value’, the book concentrates instead on the poetic and literary qualities of each author's work, dwelling on the politics and poetics of identity, as well as the ethics and aesthetics of this literature. It includes clear discussions of key terms such as ‘postcolonial’, ‘Francophone’ and ‘autobiography’, which current academic discourse has rendered very complex and even opaque. The book includes a fascinating photograph of two stone tablets inscribed with Punic and Numidian scripts.
Nicholas Harrison (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310546
- eISBN:
- 9781846319808
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846319808.005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Ces voix qui m'assiègent…en marge de ma francophonie is the only book written by Assia Djebar that might be interpreted as theoretical. Nevertheless, she has made important contributions to ...
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Ces voix qui m'assiègent…en marge de ma francophonie is the only book written by Assia Djebar that might be interpreted as theoretical. Nevertheless, she has made important contributions to postcolonial thought and the francophone. Djebar's engagement with ‘postcolonial’ issues is evident in her focus on a colonial history whose significance has often been underplayed or underrated by Europe. She has also written repeatedly about a post-independence Algeria that remains deeply influenced by its colonial history. Djebar's fiction challenges a certain Eurocentricity and some of the dominant narratives in post-independence Algeria in connection with religious and ethnic identity. Djebar's approach to Algerian politics must be seen in terms of her focus on women's lives and feminine perspectives.Less
Ces voix qui m'assiègent…en marge de ma francophonie is the only book written by Assia Djebar that might be interpreted as theoretical. Nevertheless, she has made important contributions to postcolonial thought and the francophone. Djebar's engagement with ‘postcolonial’ issues is evident in her focus on a colonial history whose significance has often been underplayed or underrated by Europe. She has also written repeatedly about a post-independence Algeria that remains deeply influenced by its colonial history. Djebar's fiction challenges a certain Eurocentricity and some of the dominant narratives in post-independence Algeria in connection with religious and ethnic identity. Djebar's approach to Algerian politics must be seen in terms of her focus on women's lives and feminine perspectives.
Jane Hiddleston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781846310317
- eISBN:
- 9781786945341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310317.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This first chapter studies Djebar’s works published during the early years of her career, from her first novel La Soif to the last of her novels written in the early period, Les Alouettes naïves. The ...
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This first chapter studies Djebar’s works published during the early years of her career, from her first novel La Soif to the last of her novels written in the early period, Les Alouettes naïves. The chapter explores Djebar’s notions of identity construction, the role of women, including their subordination and revolt, social convention, political thought, and Algerian identity.Less
This first chapter studies Djebar’s works published during the early years of her career, from her first novel La Soif to the last of her novels written in the early period, Les Alouettes naïves. The chapter explores Djebar’s notions of identity construction, the role of women, including their subordination and revolt, social convention, political thought, and Algerian identity.
Tahia Abdel Nasser
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474420228
- eISBN:
- 9781474438537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420228.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter focuses on the autobiographical novels and memoirs of two important twentieth-century Arab women writers who provide models for the adaptation of the genre in colonial and postcolonial ...
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This chapter focuses on the autobiographical novels and memoirs of two important twentieth-century Arab women writers who provide models for the adaptation of the genre in colonial and postcolonial cultures: Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade and Nowhere in My Father’s House, two Francophone autobiographical novels by Algerian writer Assia Djebar, and The Search: Personal Papers, a memoir in Arabic by Egyptian writer Latifa al-Zayyat. By framing autobiographical production in anticolonial national movements, Djebar and al-Zayyat rework the genre to comment on postcolonial cultures. Both writers contest colonial formations and offer revolutionary representations of solitude in the postcolonial nation: the Francophone Algerian writer’s challenge to the French archive of the Algerian War of Independence and the Egyptian writer’s reexamination of national culture and the history of the 1940s student movement. In the chapter, solitude is read as an emancipatory opportunity when the writers rethink the language of the new nation through autobiography.Less
This chapter focuses on the autobiographical novels and memoirs of two important twentieth-century Arab women writers who provide models for the adaptation of the genre in colonial and postcolonial cultures: Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade and Nowhere in My Father’s House, two Francophone autobiographical novels by Algerian writer Assia Djebar, and The Search: Personal Papers, a memoir in Arabic by Egyptian writer Latifa al-Zayyat. By framing autobiographical production in anticolonial national movements, Djebar and al-Zayyat rework the genre to comment on postcolonial cultures. Both writers contest colonial formations and offer revolutionary representations of solitude in the postcolonial nation: the Francophone Algerian writer’s challenge to the French archive of the Algerian War of Independence and the Egyptian writer’s reexamination of national culture and the history of the 1940s student movement. In the chapter, solitude is read as an emancipatory opportunity when the writers rethink the language of the new nation through autobiography.
Stephen Morton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846318498
- eISBN:
- 9781781380758
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846318498.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Chapter five considers how the colonial state of emergency in Algeria was framed and contested in a range of literary and legal texts. The chapter begins by considering the way in which the ...
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Chapter five considers how the colonial state of emergency in Algeria was framed and contested in a range of literary and legal texts. The chapter begins by considering the way in which the declaration of a state of emergency in Algeria in 1955 made possible the increasingly military character of French colonial policy in Algeria. After an analysis of the rhetoric of necessity that was used to justify the recourse to emergency powers, the chapter proceeds to analyse how the French colonial state of emergency is figured in French colonial narratives of the Algerian war. If these narratives try to create a heroic mythology that justifies the recourse to emergency powers, memoirs of the Algerian war such as Henri Alleg’s The Question (1958) and Louisette Ighilahriz’s Algérienne (2001) disclose the implications of emergency powers from the standpoint of the Algerian civilian population. By reading these narratives in conjunction with Assia Djebar’s novels of the Algerian war and Soleiman Adel Guémar’s Etat D’Urgence (2007) the chapter concludes by tracing the emergence of a subaltern history of the Algerian war and its aftermath in recent Algerian writing.Less
Chapter five considers how the colonial state of emergency in Algeria was framed and contested in a range of literary and legal texts. The chapter begins by considering the way in which the declaration of a state of emergency in Algeria in 1955 made possible the increasingly military character of French colonial policy in Algeria. After an analysis of the rhetoric of necessity that was used to justify the recourse to emergency powers, the chapter proceeds to analyse how the French colonial state of emergency is figured in French colonial narratives of the Algerian war. If these narratives try to create a heroic mythology that justifies the recourse to emergency powers, memoirs of the Algerian war such as Henri Alleg’s The Question (1958) and Louisette Ighilahriz’s Algérienne (2001) disclose the implications of emergency powers from the standpoint of the Algerian civilian population. By reading these narratives in conjunction with Assia Djebar’s novels of the Algerian war and Soleiman Adel Guémar’s Etat D’Urgence (2007) the chapter concludes by tracing the emergence of a subaltern history of the Algerian war and its aftermath in recent Algerian writing.
Zahia Smail Salhi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231163378
- eISBN:
- 9780231850254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231163378.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter critiques the masculinisation in postcolonial discourse and its remembering, through an analysis of the work of Assia Djebar. Djebar's film, The Nouba of the Women of Mont Chenoua ...
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This chapter critiques the masculinisation in postcolonial discourse and its remembering, through an analysis of the work of Assia Djebar. Djebar's film, The Nouba of the Women of Mont Chenoua (1978), which pays tribute to the heroism of Algerian women during the struggle against French colonialism — omitted from the numerous war films made in post-independent Algeria — and challenges the image of women as mute objects and renders them as active subjects. The film's storytelling structure, follows the form of a nouba, a classical Maghrebian/Andalusian musical suite, in which women play active parts either as the main singers of the nouba, or as part of the chorus and orchestra. The nouba becomes a stylistic technique and a metaphor for restoring the voice of women. Through this technique, women become commentators on the progression of history, even as they challenge oblivion and marginalisation.Less
This chapter critiques the masculinisation in postcolonial discourse and its remembering, through an analysis of the work of Assia Djebar. Djebar's film, The Nouba of the Women of Mont Chenoua (1978), which pays tribute to the heroism of Algerian women during the struggle against French colonialism — omitted from the numerous war films made in post-independent Algeria — and challenges the image of women as mute objects and renders them as active subjects. The film's storytelling structure, follows the form of a nouba, a classical Maghrebian/Andalusian musical suite, in which women play active parts either as the main singers of the nouba, or as part of the chorus and orchestra. The nouba becomes a stylistic technique and a metaphor for restoring the voice of women. Through this technique, women become commentators on the progression of history, even as they challenge oblivion and marginalisation.
Jane Hiddleston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781846310317
- eISBN:
- 9781786945341
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310317.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Assia Djebar: Out of Algeria is a book about expatriation, and the constant, necessary revisiting that follows. In the book, Hiddleston seeks to conceptualise Djebar’s progressive struggle and ...
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Assia Djebar: Out of Algeria is a book about expatriation, and the constant, necessary revisiting that follows. In the book, Hiddleston seeks to conceptualise Djebar’s progressive struggle and dissatisfaction with the notion of Algerian identity by referring to a number of contemporary theoretical concepts. Hiddleston’s analysis of the Djebar’s gradual and partial ‘expatriation’ is shaped heavily by the writer’s participation in crossroads between French philosophy, multiple Algerian traditions, and Anglo-American postcolonial theory. The study also situates Djebar’s thinking in recent French philosophy, making connections between her understanding of subjectivity and individuation and those produced by contemporary thinkers working in France.Less
Assia Djebar: Out of Algeria is a book about expatriation, and the constant, necessary revisiting that follows. In the book, Hiddleston seeks to conceptualise Djebar’s progressive struggle and dissatisfaction with the notion of Algerian identity by referring to a number of contemporary theoretical concepts. Hiddleston’s analysis of the Djebar’s gradual and partial ‘expatriation’ is shaped heavily by the writer’s participation in crossroads between French philosophy, multiple Algerian traditions, and Anglo-American postcolonial theory. The study also situates Djebar’s thinking in recent French philosophy, making connections between her understanding of subjectivity and individuation and those produced by contemporary thinkers working in France.
Jane Hiddleston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781846310317
- eISBN:
- 9781786945341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310317.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
‘Haunted Algeria’ studies Djebar’s expatriation from Algeria in her later works. The chapter describes loss felt by Algeria and foregrounds the country’s search for identity and belonging, as its ...
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‘Haunted Algeria’ studies Djebar’s expatriation from Algeria in her later works. The chapter describes loss felt by Algeria and foregrounds the country’s search for identity and belonging, as its remembrance of the horrors of its past by which it is still haunted.Less
‘Haunted Algeria’ studies Djebar’s expatriation from Algeria in her later works. The chapter describes loss felt by Algeria and foregrounds the country’s search for identity and belonging, as its remembrance of the horrors of its past by which it is still haunted.
Jennifer Solheim
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781786940827
- eISBN:
- 9781786945082
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940827.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
In my proposal of cut sound as a literary device, I demonstrate that silences can be woven into literary narratives through the interplay of dialogue and characters’ reactions with characters’ ...
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In my proposal of cut sound as a literary device, I demonstrate that silences can be woven into literary narratives through the interplay of dialogue and characters’ reactions with characters’ thoughts. To develop cut sound as a literary mode of listening, I draw from Djebar’s theorization of women’s silences in the essay ‘Forbidden Gaze, Severed Sound’ (1978), from her collection Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement, as well as oral folklore and performance studies scholar Richard Bauman’s concept of the performance event. Music recording production techniques serve as a critical metaphor for how to listen for silences in literary narratives. The characters’ thoughts either belie their reactions to what other characters say, or their thoughts efface parts of dialogue altogether, effectively erasing what other characters say from the text. In my readings of Djebar’s novella ‘Femmes d’Algers dans leur appartement’ and Leïla Sebbar’s novel Shérazade (1982), I demonstrate how cut sound weaves dialogue with thought in order to articulate cut sound, or the gendered silences of postcolonial subjects.Less
In my proposal of cut sound as a literary device, I demonstrate that silences can be woven into literary narratives through the interplay of dialogue and characters’ reactions with characters’ thoughts. To develop cut sound as a literary mode of listening, I draw from Djebar’s theorization of women’s silences in the essay ‘Forbidden Gaze, Severed Sound’ (1978), from her collection Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement, as well as oral folklore and performance studies scholar Richard Bauman’s concept of the performance event. Music recording production techniques serve as a critical metaphor for how to listen for silences in literary narratives. The characters’ thoughts either belie their reactions to what other characters say, or their thoughts efface parts of dialogue altogether, effectively erasing what other characters say from the text. In my readings of Djebar’s novella ‘Femmes d’Algers dans leur appartement’ and Leïla Sebbar’s novel Shérazade (1982), I demonstrate how cut sound weaves dialogue with thought in order to articulate cut sound, or the gendered silences of postcolonial subjects.
Kathryn Lachman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781781380307
- eISBN:
- 9781781387290
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781380307.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Borrowed Forms examines the use of music by contemporary novelists and critics from across the francophone, anglophone, and hispanophone worlds. Through readings of Nancy Huston, Maryse Condé, J. M. ...
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Borrowed Forms examines the use of music by contemporary novelists and critics from across the francophone, anglophone, and hispanophone worlds. Through readings of Nancy Huston, Maryse Condé, J. M. Coetzee, Assia Djebar, Julio Cortázar, and other late twentieth-century novelists, the book shows how writers deploy musical strategies to expand the possibilities of the novel in response to the demands of transnational citizenship. The book transcends disciplinary boundaries to reveal the entanglement of musical and narrative forms in ethical, historical, and political questions. Critics from Mikhail Bakhtin to Edward Said established musical forms as an indispensable framework for understanding the novel. This study argues that the turn to music in late twentieth-century fiction is linked to new questions of authority and representation, as writers seek to democratize the novel, bring marginalized voices into fiction, articulate increasingly hybrid subjectivities, and negotiate the conflicting histories of the diverse groups that make up today's multicultural societies. The book traces the influence of four musical concepts on literary theory and the contemporary novel: polyphony, or the art of combining multiple, equal voices; counterpoint, the carefully regulated setting of one voice against another; variation, the virtuosic exploration of a given theme; and opera, the dramatic setting of a story to a musical score. Borrowed Forms is both a vital reference for those seeking to understand the influence of music on twentieth-century literary theory, and a rigorous and interdisciplinary framework for considering the transnational novel.Less
Borrowed Forms examines the use of music by contemporary novelists and critics from across the francophone, anglophone, and hispanophone worlds. Through readings of Nancy Huston, Maryse Condé, J. M. Coetzee, Assia Djebar, Julio Cortázar, and other late twentieth-century novelists, the book shows how writers deploy musical strategies to expand the possibilities of the novel in response to the demands of transnational citizenship. The book transcends disciplinary boundaries to reveal the entanglement of musical and narrative forms in ethical, historical, and political questions. Critics from Mikhail Bakhtin to Edward Said established musical forms as an indispensable framework for understanding the novel. This study argues that the turn to music in late twentieth-century fiction is linked to new questions of authority and representation, as writers seek to democratize the novel, bring marginalized voices into fiction, articulate increasingly hybrid subjectivities, and negotiate the conflicting histories of the diverse groups that make up today's multicultural societies. The book traces the influence of four musical concepts on literary theory and the contemporary novel: polyphony, or the art of combining multiple, equal voices; counterpoint, the carefully regulated setting of one voice against another; variation, the virtuosic exploration of a given theme; and opera, the dramatic setting of a story to a musical score. Borrowed Forms is both a vital reference for those seeking to understand the influence of music on twentieth-century literary theory, and a rigorous and interdisciplinary framework for considering the transnational novel.
Jane Hiddleston
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781846310317
- eISBN:
- 9781786945341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310317.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This concluding chapter gives a final comment on Djebar’s development as a writer and her methods of writing. It focuses on her representation of the suffering felt by Algeria, and the ways in which ...
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This concluding chapter gives a final comment on Djebar’s development as a writer and her methods of writing. It focuses on her representation of the suffering felt by Algeria, and the ways in which war and loss can affect identity and belonging.Less
This concluding chapter gives a final comment on Djebar’s development as a writer and her methods of writing. It focuses on her representation of the suffering felt by Algeria, and the ways in which war and loss can affect identity and belonging.
