Olivia C. Harrison
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804794213
- eISBN:
- 9780804796859
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804794213.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Chapter Five begins by examining Abdelkebir Khatibi’s 1974 pamphlet, Vomito blanco. A violent polemic against Zionism, this treatise is markedly different in tone and genre from Khatibi’s later ...
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Chapter Five begins by examining Abdelkebir Khatibi’s 1974 pamphlet, Vomito blanco. A violent polemic against Zionism, this treatise is markedly different in tone and genre from Khatibi’s later writings, and in particular, his exchanges with the Jewish Egyptian psychoanalyst Jacques Hassoun and the French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida on the topic of “the Abrahamic,” the tie that binds Jews and Muslims in spite of colonial/Zionist efforts to separate them. Revisiting Khatibi’s fiction in light of his Abrahamic reflections, this chapter argues that he deploys bi-langue—the in-between language he is compelled to practice as a result of the imposition of French—to resist not only assimilation, but also the separation between Jews and Arabs. The crossed reading of Khatibi and Derrida further reveals that the latter’s little known writings on Palestine and Israel are rooted in his experience of French colonialism in Algeria.Less
Chapter Five begins by examining Abdelkebir Khatibi’s 1974 pamphlet, Vomito blanco. A violent polemic against Zionism, this treatise is markedly different in tone and genre from Khatibi’s later writings, and in particular, his exchanges with the Jewish Egyptian psychoanalyst Jacques Hassoun and the French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida on the topic of “the Abrahamic,” the tie that binds Jews and Muslims in spite of colonial/Zionist efforts to separate them. Revisiting Khatibi’s fiction in light of his Abrahamic reflections, this chapter argues that he deploys bi-langue—the in-between language he is compelled to practice as a result of the imposition of French—to resist not only assimilation, but also the separation between Jews and Arabs. The crossed reading of Khatibi and Derrida further reveals that the latter’s little known writings on Palestine and Israel are rooted in his experience of French colonialism in Algeria.
Edwige Tamalet Talbayev
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823275151
- eISBN:
- 9780823277254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823275151.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter explores the multiple and conflicting reappropriations of al-Andalus—as both historical moment and mythopoetic trope of coexistence. Assessing Abdelkébir Khatibi’s hypothesis of an Arab ...
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This chapter explores the multiple and conflicting reappropriations of al-Andalus—as both historical moment and mythopoetic trope of coexistence. Assessing Abdelkébir Khatibi’s hypothesis of an Arab “traumatic chiasmus” that followed the Spanish Reconquista, it argues that this entwined yet symmetrical bond is colored by reflective nostalgia (Boym) for an imagined transnational, transconfessional, and multilingual community. In light of Juan Goytisolo’s “Andalusian legacy,” it examines cultural and literary representations of al-Andalus produced in Spain and the Arab world as a product of historical truncation and traumatic memorialization. Khatibi’s restoration of contemporary Spain to the Arab imaginary appropriates the Andalusian past to rethink Morocco’s claim to historical agency beyond French and Spanish colonialisms. In contrast, Nabile Farès’ dystopian “virtual” Andalusia (Deleuze) gives in to the influence of politically unconvincing nostalgia. The chapter ends by revealing how Jewish-Tunisian writer Colette Fellous appropriates Andalusian convivencia to engage Jewish-Muslim relations in Tunisia and current debates about Mediterranean history. Willfully deserting the political arena, Farès and Fellous embody a fundamental sense of belatedness that casts the Mediterranean as a mythical refuge averse to historical realization. They offer a powerful counterpoint to the kind of allegorization performed by Kateb at the apex of nationalism.Less
This chapter explores the multiple and conflicting reappropriations of al-Andalus—as both historical moment and mythopoetic trope of coexistence. Assessing Abdelkébir Khatibi’s hypothesis of an Arab “traumatic chiasmus” that followed the Spanish Reconquista, it argues that this entwined yet symmetrical bond is colored by reflective nostalgia (Boym) for an imagined transnational, transconfessional, and multilingual community. In light of Juan Goytisolo’s “Andalusian legacy,” it examines cultural and literary representations of al-Andalus produced in Spain and the Arab world as a product of historical truncation and traumatic memorialization. Khatibi’s restoration of contemporary Spain to the Arab imaginary appropriates the Andalusian past to rethink Morocco’s claim to historical agency beyond French and Spanish colonialisms. In contrast, Nabile Farès’ dystopian “virtual” Andalusia (Deleuze) gives in to the influence of politically unconvincing nostalgia. The chapter ends by revealing how Jewish-Tunisian writer Colette Fellous appropriates Andalusian convivencia to engage Jewish-Muslim relations in Tunisia and current debates about Mediterranean history. Willfully deserting the political arena, Farès and Fellous embody a fundamental sense of belatedness that casts the Mediterranean as a mythical refuge averse to historical realization. They offer a powerful counterpoint to the kind of allegorization performed by Kateb at the apex of nationalism.
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.
Charles Forsdick and David Murphy (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310546
- eISBN:
- 9781846319808
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846319808
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In the late 1990s, Postcolonial Studies risked imploding as a credible area of academic enquiry. Repeated anthologisation and an overemphasis on English-language literature led to sustained critiques ...
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In the late 1990s, Postcolonial Studies risked imploding as a credible area of academic enquiry. Repeated anthologisation and an overemphasis on English-language literature led to sustained critiques of the field and to an active search for alternative approaches to the globalised and transnational formations of the postcolonial world. In the early twenty-first century, however, it began to reveal a new openness to its comparative dimensions. French-language contributors to postcolonial debate (such as Édouard Glissant and Abdelkébir Khatibi) have recently risen to greater prominence in the English-speaking world, and there have also appeared an increasing number of important critical and theoretical texts on postcolonial issues, written by scholars working principally on French-language material. It is to such a context that this book responds. Acknowledging these shifts, it gives students and scholars outside French departments a way into the study of Francophone colonial postcolonial debates, and, at the same time, supplies scholars in French with an overview of essential ideas and key intellectuals in this area.Less
In the late 1990s, Postcolonial Studies risked imploding as a credible area of academic enquiry. Repeated anthologisation and an overemphasis on English-language literature led to sustained critiques of the field and to an active search for alternative approaches to the globalised and transnational formations of the postcolonial world. In the early twenty-first century, however, it began to reveal a new openness to its comparative dimensions. French-language contributors to postcolonial debate (such as Édouard Glissant and Abdelkébir Khatibi) have recently risen to greater prominence in the English-speaking world, and there have also appeared an increasing number of important critical and theoretical texts on postcolonial issues, written by scholars working principally on French-language material. It is to such a context that this book responds. Acknowledging these shifts, it gives students and scholars outside French departments a way into the study of Francophone colonial postcolonial debates, and, at the same time, supplies scholars in French with an overview of essential ideas and key intellectuals in this area.
Alison Rice (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310546
- eISBN:
- 9781846319808
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846319808.009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Abdelkébir Khatibi is a French-speaking Moroccan writer who has produced a diverse and complex oeuvre that draws on European philosophy to tackle the specific challenges facing postcolonial subjects ...
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Abdelkébir Khatibi is a French-speaking Moroccan writer who has produced a diverse and complex oeuvre that draws on European philosophy to tackle the specific challenges facing postcolonial subjects from the French-speaking world. He received a French education in his native Morocco, a protectorate of France at the time, and took up sociology at the Sorbonne in Paris. Despite being a permanent resident of France, Khatibi returned to Morocco to teach at the University of Rabat. Certain themes recur in his work, including decolonisation, religion, and translation. Khatabi's collection of essays, Maghreb pluriel (1983), was one of the greatest contributions to postcolonial reflections on Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia – the three countries that comprise the North African region known as the Maghreb. His texts demonstrate a wide range of interests, from language and calligraphy to Islamic art, poetry, theatre, literary criticism, and sociology.Less
Abdelkébir Khatibi is a French-speaking Moroccan writer who has produced a diverse and complex oeuvre that draws on European philosophy to tackle the specific challenges facing postcolonial subjects from the French-speaking world. He received a French education in his native Morocco, a protectorate of France at the time, and took up sociology at the Sorbonne in Paris. Despite being a permanent resident of France, Khatibi returned to Morocco to teach at the University of Rabat. Certain themes recur in his work, including decolonisation, religion, and translation. Khatabi's collection of essays, Maghreb pluriel (1983), was one of the greatest contributions to postcolonial reflections on Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia – the three countries that comprise the North African region known as the Maghreb. His texts demonstrate a wide range of interests, from language and calligraphy to Islamic art, poetry, theatre, literary criticism, and sociology.
David Fieni
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780823286409
- eISBN:
- 9780823288748
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823286409.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
While some postcolonial critics have championed Abdelkebir Khatibi’s notion of “double critique” over Edward Said’s method of “contrapuntal reading” (Lionnet), this conclusion argues for a novel way ...
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While some postcolonial critics have championed Abdelkebir Khatibi’s notion of “double critique” over Edward Said’s method of “contrapuntal reading” (Lionnet), this conclusion argues for a novel way of combining these two approaches. Khatibi’s elaboration of the intersign and his deployment of the intersemiotic in his work illustrate a way of reading both the positive and negative signs of the decay of colonial modernity, while also gauging the spaces and intervals between them. Saidian contrapuntal reading allows critics to account for the historical sedimentation of knowledge and how it is built up in specific languages but not in others. Contrapuntal double critique, then, can deconstruct the oppositions constitutive of the field of imperialist discourse without disabling oppositional, anti-imperialist critique. The conclusion outlines Khatibi’s transcolonial Maghrebi traveling theory, which is explored in his writing on Jean Genet and in the explication of his own novel Un Été à Stockholm. It ends by questioning the category of “francophone literature” as a monolingual, self-contained version of comparative literature.Less
While some postcolonial critics have championed Abdelkebir Khatibi’s notion of “double critique” over Edward Said’s method of “contrapuntal reading” (Lionnet), this conclusion argues for a novel way of combining these two approaches. Khatibi’s elaboration of the intersign and his deployment of the intersemiotic in his work illustrate a way of reading both the positive and negative signs of the decay of colonial modernity, while also gauging the spaces and intervals between them. Saidian contrapuntal reading allows critics to account for the historical sedimentation of knowledge and how it is built up in specific languages but not in others. Contrapuntal double critique, then, can deconstruct the oppositions constitutive of the field of imperialist discourse without disabling oppositional, anti-imperialist critique. The conclusion outlines Khatibi’s transcolonial Maghrebi traveling theory, which is explored in his writing on Jean Genet and in the explication of his own novel Un Été à Stockholm. It ends by questioning the category of “francophone literature” as a monolingual, self-contained version of comparative literature.
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853236597
- eISBN:
- 9781846312625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853236597.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the question of the relationship between the writer's self and literary expression. The analysis focuses on the work of four ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the question of the relationship between the writer's self and literary expression. The analysis focuses on the work of four North African writers: Mouloud Feraoun, Assia Djebar, Albert Memmi and Abdelkébir Khatibi. The writers share a complex relationship with language, since all of them write in French, a legacy of colonial intervention in those countries, but this relationship varies according to differences in ethnic identity, class and gender. The structure and organization of the present study are also described.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the question of the relationship between the writer's self and literary expression. The analysis focuses on the work of four North African writers: Mouloud Feraoun, Assia Djebar, Albert Memmi and Abdelkébir Khatibi. The writers share a complex relationship with language, since all of them write in French, a legacy of colonial intervention in those countries, but this relationship varies according to differences in ethnic identity, class and gender. The structure and organization of the present study are also described.
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853236597
- eISBN:
- 9781846312625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853236597.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter examines the work of Abdelkébir Khatibi. It focuses on his first creative work, La Mémoire tatouée (1971), a text that Khatibi has openly acknowledged as autobiographical. The chapter ...
More
This chapter examines the work of Abdelkébir Khatibi. It focuses on his first creative work, La Mémoire tatouée (1971), a text that Khatibi has openly acknowledged as autobiographical. The chapter begins by exploring briefly the problematic presence of the self in Khatibi's later texts. It then turns to the initial exploration of selfhood in the postcolonial situation that generates the writing of La Mémoire tatouée.Less
This chapter examines the work of Abdelkébir Khatibi. It focuses on his first creative work, La Mémoire tatouée (1971), a text that Khatibi has openly acknowledged as autobiographical. The chapter begins by exploring briefly the problematic presence of the self in Khatibi's later texts. It then turns to the initial exploration of selfhood in the postcolonial situation that generates the writing of La Mémoire tatouée.
