Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'North African poetry (French)'

The thesis investigates and compares native French and second-generation North African French citizens' perspectives on the 'crisis' surrounding France's North African minority through surveys and interviews. Results indicate that the major point of contention between the two groups is in their views on North African French integration: native French being more likely to believe that North African French neither feel French nor share their same fundamental norms. Interviews with North African French indicate that they feel they are still treated as immigrants and rejected by French society, which consequently has an impact on their overall social cohesion, socioeconomic and political equality and sense of belonging. The diversity of opinions amongst respondents also indicates that in most cases North African French are indistinguishable from their native French counterparts and are, paradoxically, good examples of Republican integration.
Ce mémoire a pour but, à travers des sondages et des entretiens, l'examen des perceptions des Français de souche et des Maghrébins de seconde génération sur la 'crise' d'intégration qui semble affliger la population Maghrébine en France. Les résultats indiquent que le point de désaccord entre les deux groupes se trouve surtout dans leur perception de l'intégration des Français Maghrébins. Les Français de souche ont tendance à croire que ces derniers ne se sentent pas Français et ne partagent pas les mêmes valeurs. Les entretiens avec les Français Maghrébins indiquent que ceux-ci se sentent perçus en tant qu'immigrés et rejetés par la société française. Cela a un impact négatif sur la cohésion sociale du pays, sur l'égalité socioéconomique et politique des Maghrébins Français ainsi que sur leur sentiment d'appartenance. Néanmoins, la plupart de leurs opinions ne peuvent être distinguer de ceux des Français de souche, illustrant, paradoxalement, le succès de l'intégration Républicaine.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses.
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2031-01-02

Assumptions about space, argues the feminist geographer Doreen Massey, are such an integral part of intellectual and everyday discourse that we are often not conscious of their existence and significance, and yet, they have profound consequences for how society is organised. However, these assumptions are not inherent to our thinking; they are socially constructed, produced and inherited through a number of hegemonic and Eurocentric discourses on space, leading to what Edward Soja and Henri Lefebvre refer to as the “mystification” of space and spatiality. The main aim of this research is to investigate how the literary treatment of space and place shapes the representations of space, place and spatial loss in the writing of ten postcolonial Francophone authors from the Maghreb and Canada from a cross-cultural and cross-generational perspective. It asks whether these authors participate in the “demystification” (in the sense this concept is used by Edward Soja) or the unveiling of the hidden relationship between space and power contained in the Eurocentric discourse on space by creating counter-discourses and strategies that challenge dominant constructions about space, or whether they in fact reinforce this (these) discourse(s) on space despite their presumed postcoloniality. The research presented critically evaluates the concepts and theories of space and place in human geography and applies these to the study of space, place and spatial loss in the postcolonial Francophone texts selected from the viewpoint of three main literary themes (imagination, memory and the border) and the potential that these three themes offer for a “demystification of space”. It combines a range of theoretical perspectives and, simultaneously, tests a method of close reading (semiotic analysis) in the analysis of the texts selected and the literary spaces they are seen to belong to in a more systematic way than previously attempted. It sets out to examine how a semiotic reading of the (Western and non-Western) postcolonial Francophone text engages with Massey’s and Soja’s socio-political understandings and theories on space and spatiality, and what limitations and advantages can be observed through the use of these theories in combination. The research concludes that the postcolonial discourse on space and place in the texts selected is expressed through the values and strategies of ambiguity and ambivalence, not subversion as has been previously suggested. It shows that the themes of imagination, memory and the border play a significant role for the ways in which space and place are conceptualised in those texts, with the theme of the border offering the highest potential for challenging hegemonic assumptions about space. It shows that semiotics can become an effective tool in the unveiling of the values and value systems embedded in the Eurocentric discourse on space, when used in combination with other theoretical approaches. By debating the issue of the “demystification of spatiality” in the literary context, it ultimately raises the larger question of the status and relationship of literariness (or poetics) and political engagement (or politics) of the texts produced within the postcolonial Francophone context.

This paper discusses the poetry of Audre Lorde and Natasha Trethewey, and the ways in which they bring to attention the often-silenced histories of African American females. Through close readings of Lorde’s poems “Call” and “Coal,” and Trethewey’s “Three Photographs,” these histories are brought to the present with the framework of the words “call” and “re-call.” The paper explores the ways in which Lorde creates a new mythology for understanding her identity as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” in her innovative, intersectional feminist poetry. This is used as the framework for understanding modern poets like Trethewey, whose identity as a biracial black woman from the American South colors her lyric, more formal work. Lorde uses the vocal, oral tradition of calling as Trethewey relies on visual, gaze-focused recall. Recall is memory and re-call means bringing the hidden past into the future. The paper concludes by saying that all black female writers may participate in their own ways of calling out the truth and remembering what should be forgotten.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis, I undertake an extensive overview of a range of language activities that foreground the materiality of language, and that require an active reader oriented towards the text as a producer, rather than a consumer, of meaning. To this end, performance, as a function of both orality and print texts, forms an important focus for my argument. I am particularly interested in the effect that the disruption of language has on the position of the subject in language, especially in terms of the dialogic exchange between local and global subject positions. Poetry is a language activity that requires a particular attention to form and meaning, and that is licensed to activate and exploit the materiality of language. For this reason, I have focused on the work of a selection of North American poets, the Language poets. These poets are primarily concerned with the performative possibilities of language as it appears in print media. I juxtapose these language activities with those of a selection of contemporary South African poets whose work is marked by the influence of oral forms, and reveals telling interplays between media. All these poets are preoccupied with the ways in which the sign might be disrupted. In my discussion of the work of the Language poets, I consider how examples of their print poetics present the reader with language fragments, arranged according to non-syntactic principles. Confronted by the lack of an individuated lyric subject around whom these fragments might cohere, the reader is obliged to make his/her own connections between words, sounds and phrases. Similarly, in the work of the performance poets, I identify several aspects in the poetry that trouble a transparent transmission of expression, and instead require the poetry to be read as an interrogation of the constitution of the subject. Here, the ―I‖ fleetingly occupies multiple, shifting subject positions, and the poetic interplay between media and language tends towards a continuous destabilising of the poetic self. Poets and performers are, to some extent, licensed to experiment with language in ways that render it opaque. Because the language activities of poets and performers are generally accommodated within the order of symbolic or metaphoric language, their experimentation with non-communicative excesses can be understood as part of their framework. However, in situations where ―communicative‖ language is expected, the order of literal or forensic language cannot accommodate seemingly non-communicative excesses that appear to render the text opaque. Ultimately, I am concerned with exploring the manner in which attention to the materiality of language might open up alternative understandings of language, subjectivity and representation in South African public discourse. My conclusion therefore considers the consequences when the issues opened up by the poetry – questions of self and subject, authority and representation – are translated into forensic frameworks and testimonial discourse.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: My proefskrif bied ‘n breedvoerige oorsig van ‘n reeks taal-aktiwiteite wat die materialiteit van taal sigbaar maak. Hierdie taal-aktiwiteite skep tekste wat die leser/kyker noop om as vervaardiger, eerder as verbruiker, van betekenis in ‘n aktiewe verhouding met die teks te tree. Die performatiewe funksie van beide gesproke sowel as gedrukte taal vorm dus die hooffokus van my argument. Ek stel veral belang in die effek wat onderbrekings en versteurings in taal op die subjek van taal uitoefen, en hoe hierdie prosesse die die dialogiese verhouding tussen lokale en globale subjek-posisies beïnvloed. Poëtiese taal-aktiwiteite word gekenmerk deur ‘n fokus op vorm en die verhouding tussen vorm en inhoud. Terwyl die meeste taalpraktyke taaldeursigtigheid vereis ter wille van direkte kommunikasie, het poëtiese taal tot ‘n mate die vryheid om die materaliteit van taal te gebruik en te ontgin. Om hierdie rede fokus ek selektief op die werk van ‘n groep Noord-Amerikaanse digters, die sogenaamde ―Language poets‖. Hierdie digters is hoofsaaklik met die performatiewe moontlikhede van gedrukte taal bemoeid. Voorts word hierdie taal-aktiwiteite met ‘n seleksie kontemporêre Suid-Afrikaanse digters se werk vergelyk, wat gekenmerk word deur die invloed van gesproke taalvorms wat met ‘n verskeidenhed media in wisselwerking gestel word. Al hierdie digters is geïnteresseerd in die maniere waarop die inherente onstabiliteit van linguistiese aanduiers ontgin kan word. In my bespreking van die werk van die Language poets ondersoek ek voorbeelde van hul gedrukte digkuns wat die leser voor taalfragmente te staan bring wat nie volgens die gewone reëls van sintaks georganiseer is nie. Die gebrek aan ‘n geïndividualiseerde liriese subjek, waarom hierdie fragmente ‘n samehangendheid sou kon kry, noop die leser om haar eie verbindings tussen woorde, klanke en frases te maak. Op ‘n soortgelyke wyse identifiseer ek verskeie aspekte wat die deursigtige versending van taaluitinge in die werk van sekere Suid-Afrikanse performance poets belemmer. Hierdie gedigte kan eerder gelees word as ‘n interrogasie van die proses waardeur die samestelling van die subjek in taal geskied. In hierdie gedigte bewoon die ―ek‖ vlietend ‘n verskeidenheid verskuiwende subjek-posisies. Die wisselwerking van verskillende media dra ook by tot die vermenigvuldiging van subjek-posisies, en loop uit op ‘n performatiewe uitbeelding van die destabilisering van die digterlike ―self.‖ Digters en performers is tot ‘n mate vry om met die vertroebelingsmoontlikhede van taal te eksperimenteer. Omdat die taal-aktiwiteite van digters en performers gewoonlik binne die orde van simboliese of metaforiese taal val, kan hul eksperimentering met die nie-kommunikatiewe oormaat van taal binne hierdie raamwerk verstaan word. Hierdie oormaat kan egter nie binne die orde van letterlike of forensiese taal geakkommodeer word nie. Ten slotte voer ek aan dat ‘n fokus op die materialiteit van taal alternatiewe verstaansraamwerke moontlik maak, waardeur ons begrip van die verhouding tussen taal, subjektiwiteit en representasie in die Suid-Afrikaanse publieke diskoers verbreed kan word. In my slothoofstuk oorweeg ek wat gebeur as die kwessies wat deur die bogenoemde performatiewe taal-aktiwiteite opgeroep word – vrae rondom die self en die subjek, outoriteit en representasie – binne ‘n forensiese raamwerk na die diskoers van getuienis oorgedra word

This thesis seeks to investigate the factors that cause the existing sexism within the educational system in the banlieue (suburban districts mostly comprised of North African immigrants), and the societal prejudice that exists between the society of the descendants of the immigrant population and the rest of French society. This thesis explores Jean-Paul Lilienfeld’s film, La Journée de la jupe, which highlights the major inequalities within the French educational system and stereotypes of the banlieue. The narrowed focus of this thesis is on the inequalities between women and men, which cause for the outbreak of sexism that runs rampant throughout the toxic institutions in the underprivileged areas of France, the banlieues, by analyzing the film.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: “Marginal” sexualities continue to be veiled by a cloud of silence and taboo in the Arab-Muslim societies. This study puts into conversation literary narratives by four writers of Maghrebian descent who have dared to break the intolerably irksome silence surrounding homosexuality. The novels of Rachid O., Abdellah Taïa, Eyet-Chékib Djaziri and Ilmann Bel are synchronous with the growing interest in the potential common points between literary production and queer sexualities in the Maghreb (and indeed other Arab/Muslim regions). Drawing on hermeneutic perspectives as well as diverse readings in gender and queer studies, this literary analysis deconstructs the problematic figure of the homosexual which is at once contentious as well as the locus of manifold discourses that are concerned with questioning the status quo whilst unveiling the unutterable. The literary construction and representation of “marginal” sexuality certainly plays a pivotal role in destabilising and challenging the simplistic conceptions of identity and value systems that underlie the designations of “correct and incorrect” sexual orientations and identities. Elaborating a comprehensive interpretative paradigm, this study attempts to fill the yawning gap in scholarship on the relationship between francophone literary production from the Maghreb and homosexuality. Adopting a tri-sequential approach, the study begins with an explanatory phase which contextualises queer sexuality as well as queer literary studies in the Maghreb and in France. An encounter phase follows offering a hermeneutic reading of the selected novels of the four writers, concentrating particularly on the definition, characterisation and general tonality of the literary works. The ultimate stage, the interpretive/theorisation phase, encompasses a re-reading of primary and secondary texts alongside each other so as to construct an original appraisal of the novels as well as develop a theoretically sound consideration of the construction of “marginal” sexualities in the selected novels. In addition to the above-enumerated tri-sequential approach, the argumentative flow of the study equally follows a three-pronged progression: production-text-reception. The first phase scrutinises the sociocultural, political and historical context in which the literary texts under consideration are created. The “text” phase analyses the novels in question in order to elaborate a theorisation of the construction and representation of “marginal” sexuality in the autofictional works of the aforementioned writers. The “reception” phase goes beyond the purely textual and delves into the possible impact of these literary texts on the everyday world of Arab-Muslim societies, in France as in the Maghreb.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: “Marginale” seksualiteite word steeds gehul in ʼn wolk van stilte en taboe in die Arabiese Moslemgemeenskappe. Hierdie studie ondersoek literêre narratiewe van vier skrywers van hierde streek wat dit gewaag het om die swaar en onuitstaanbaar hinderlike stilte rondom homoseksualiteit te verbreek. Die romans van Rachid O., Abdellah Taïa, Eyet-Chékib Djaziri en Ilmann Bel verskyn wanneer daar toenemende belangstelling ontstaan in uiteenlopende aspekte van en potensieel gemeenskaplike eienskappe tussen literêre produksie en sogenaamde “queer” seksualiteite in die Magreb (en ook ander Arabiese/Moslemstreke). Hierdie literêre analise, wat gebruik maak van hermeneutiese perspektiewe asook diverse gender- en queerstudies, dekonstrueer die problematiese figuur van die homoseksueel wat terselfdertyd omstrede én die lokus is van menigvuldige diskoerse wat gaan oor die bevraagtekening van die status quo terwyl die onuitspreeklike openbaar gemaak word. Die literêre konstruksie en uitbeelding van “marginale” seksualiteit speel beslis ʼn belangrike rol in die destabilisering en uitdaging van die simplistiese voorstellings van identiteit en waardesisteme wat onder die benaming van regte en verkeerde seksuele oriëntasies en identiteite lê. Deur ʼn omvattende interpretatiewe paradigma te ontwikkel, probeer hierdie studie om die gaping te vul wat in die wetenskap bestaan ten opsigte van die verhouding tussen Frankofoon literêre produksie uit die Magreb en homoseksualiteit. Die benadering bestaan uit drie opeenvolgende dele. Die studie begin met ʼn verklarende fase wat queer seksualiteit, asook queer literêre studies in die Magreb en Frankryk kontekstualiseer. ʼn Ontmoetingsfase volg waarin ʼn hermeneutiese lees van die gekose romans van die vier skrywers aangebied word, wat spesifiek op die definisie, karakterisering en algemene tonaliteit van die literêre werke fokus. Die finale fase, die interpretatiewe/teoretiseringsfase, sluit ʼn parallelle herlees van primêre en sekondêre tekste in om sodoende ʼn oorspronklike waardering van die romans te konstrueer en om ook ʼn teoreties onaanvegbare oorweging van die konstruksie van “marginale” seksualiteite in die gekose romans te ontwikkel. Verder volg die argument van die studie ook ʼn drieledige progressie: produksie-teks-ontvangs. Die eerste fase ondersoek die sosiokulturele, politiese en historiese konteks waarbinne die gekose tekste geskep is. Die “teksfase” analiseer die gekose romans om ʼn teoretisering van die konstruksie en representasie van “marginale” seksualiteit in die outofiksionele werke van die vier skrywers te ontwikkel. Die laaste fase gaan verder as die teks self en ondersoek die moontlike impak van hierdie literêre werke op die alledaagse wêreld van Arabiese Moslemgemeenskappe, in Frankryk sowel as die Magreb.
SOMMAIRE: La sexualité « marginale » demeure un sujet indicible et tabou dans les sociétés arabo-musulmanes, au Maghreb comme en France. La présente thèse essaie de mettre en conversation les récits de quatre romanciers d’origine maghrébine qui ont osé rompre l’intolérable silence { propos de l’homosexualité. Les romans de Rachid O., d’Abdellah Taïa, d’Eyet-Chékib Djaziri et d’Ilmann Bel sont synchrones avec l’intérêt croissant pour de divers aspects des sexualités « marginales » au Maghreb (et certes dans d’autres régions arabo-musulmanes). Nous servant des perspectives herméneutiques ainsi que de diverses théories des études de genre et des études queer, nous proposons dans cette étude une déconstruction du personnage de l’homosexuel qui est { la fois contentieux et également le locus de nombreux discours concernant la remise en cause du statu quo et le dévoilement de l’indicible. La construction et la représentation littéraire de la sexualité « marginale » joue certes un rôle central dans la déstabilisation des conceptions simplistes de la politique identitaire tout en mettant en cause les systèmes de valeurs qui sont à la base des désignations des identités et des orientations sexuelles. Élaborant un paradigme interprétatif compréhensif, cette étude s’efforcera de combler la lacune qui existe par rapport { l’analyse de l’intersection entre la production littéraire au Maghreb francophone et la sexualité « marginale ». Nous adoptons dans cette étude une approche tri-séquentielle et l’étape initiale, nommée la phase explicative, met en contexte la sexualité queer ainsi que les études littéraires traitant de ce sujet sur les deux rives de la Méditerranée. Cette phase préliminaire est suivie d’une phase de rencontre qui proposera une lecture herméneutique des romans, portant sur la définition, la caractérisation et la tonalité de ces oeuvres littéraires. Il s’agit dans l’étape ultime, la phase interprétative/de théorisation, d’une lecture parallèle des oeuvres primaires et secondaires afin d’établir une appréciation des romans de nos auteurs ainsi que de développer une considération valable sur le plan de la théorie de la construction et représentation de la sexualité « marginale » dans les romans choisis. En plus de l’approche ci-dessus expliquée, l’écoulement argumentatif de cette étude suit également une triple séquence : production-texte-réception. La phase de « production » examine le contexte socioculturel, politique et historique où se créent les textes littéraires sous considération. La phase de « texte » concentre sur l’analyse des oeuvres romanesques afin d’élaborer une problématisation de la sexualité « marginale ». La phase de « réception » dépasse les textes et analyse l’effet de ces textes sur le monde du quotidien des milieux arabo-musulmans, en France comme au Maghreb.

Thesis (MA (Modern Foreign Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The publication in 1983 of Medhi Charef’s novel Le thé au harem d’Archi Ahmed marked the beginning of Beur literature, a collection of narratives concerning the lives of individuals of North African origin in the French suburbs. The term “beur”, derived from the double inversion of the word “arabe”, would become synonymous with “Maghrebians” and be used to define a cultural movement claiming its uniqueness. Beur writers or those who make use of Beur heroes in their novels reveal, often in autobiographical form, the daily experiences of a marginalized minority living in identical socio-economic conditions, which are sources of conflicts, whether latent or manifest, with the dominant culture. The sensitivity of Beur writers as manifested in their writings enables us to obtain images of the lives of people living in shantytowns or the large conglomerations on the outskirts of French cities. However, this literature provides more than just a simple description of context or situation, since it also contains the verdict of young Beurs on the legitimacy of the established social order and their strategies to transform or to adapt to this order. Work, home, school, politics or affective relations are concrete examples of areas where the individual is faced with an established system of values and norms, inequality of resources and convergent or divergent interests that need to be taken into account during the process of exchange in order to satisfy his/her needs. In this interdisciplinary research we apply the sociological concepts of exchange and conflict theory in order to disclose the strategies used by characters in Beur novels to adapt or free themselves from given conditions of exchange and power configurations on different social markets of exchange.

L’Adaptation cinématographique des romans de Tahar Ben Jelloun :“L’Enfant de sable”, “La Nuit sacrée“, “La prière de l’absent”

Trois volumes, pp. 429 + 220 (Annexes).

Cette thèse porte sur l’analyse des tenants et des aboutissants de deux longs-métrages de fiction inspirés par l’œuvre de l’écrivain Tahar Ben Jelloun, à savoir La Nuit sacrée (1993) du Français Nicolas Klotz et La Prière de l’absent (1994) du Marocain Hamid Bénani.

Compte tenu du fait que le 7e Art s’est intéressé depuis toujours à tous les genres littéraires, l’auteur s’est attaché à explorer la dynamique intrinsèque des romans et des films qui font l’objet de ce travail, tout en mettant en relief les rapports que le cinéma entretient avec les représentations socioculturelles issues de ce croisement. Plutôt que se s’enfermer dans une seule démarche méthodologique, le choix a été opéré de s’ouvrir à plusieurs types d’investigation, de façon à mieux prendre en considération les spécificités des œuvres abordées.

Le premier volume de la thèse s’ouvre sur un survol de l’histoire de la littérature maghrébine d’expression française, en général, et marocaine, en particulier, et retrace son évolution, de même que les obstacles qu’il lui a fallu surmonter pour tenter de s’imposer, et qu’elle doit du reste encore surmonter de nos jours.

Après quoi, il est procédé à la définition des différents paramètres des trois romans de Tahard Ben Jelloun, à travers les fonctions et fonctionnements des composantes paratextuelles que sont les titres, les incipits et les clausules des corpus en question. Il s’agit, à ce stade, de démontrer qu’il existe une forte motivation entre ces éléments – souvent considérés comme marginaux – et le texte proprement dit.

Le travail se penche ensuite sur l’étude de chaque roman séparément, selon une approche correspondant à la nature particulière qui s’en dégage.

Après un panorama historique de la cinématographie marocaine et une brève présentation du parcours respectif des cinéastes Nicolas Klotz et Hamid Bénani, le deuxième volume se concentre, pour sa part, sur l’approche des films annoncés dans le cadre de cette étude.

L’analyse du travail d’adaptation débute par la distinction qui s’impose entre la littérature et le cinéma, aussi bien du point de vue productif que réceptif, via la mise en lumière des caractéristiques propres à ces moyens d’expression artistique. S’il apparaît légitime de confronter le cinéma et la littérature, il faut éviter de s’enfermer dans un comparatisme valorisant l’un au détriment de l’autre, sans jamais perdre de vue tout ce qui différencie ces deux formes d’écriture et les publics auxquels elles s’adressent.

Le moteur principal du travail étant l’étude du processus d’adaptation cinématographique, l’auteur s’engage par ailleurs à mettre en perspective les expériences adaptatives retenues dans ces pages, afin de les saisir sous plusieurs angles et divers niveaux de sens imbriqués, mêlant fait culturel et activité artistique.

Toute adaptation n’étant jamais que l’une des nombreuses interprétations possibles du texte originel, l’essentiel est ici d’observer, au-delà des convergences et des divergences existant entre le film et le roman, quels sont les enjeux et les objectifs de La Nuit sacrée de Klotz et de La Prière de l’absent de Bénani. À cet effet, l’accent est mis sur le concept de transfert historico-culturel cher à Michel Serceau, où le contexte sociohistorique et les conditions de fabrication jouent un rôle déterminant pour l’appropriation de l’œuvre littéraire.

Ainsi, parallèlement à l’élucidation des techniques de fabrication des films, une grande importance est accordée aux contextes historique, culturel et artistique dans lesquels ils ont vu le jour, afin de mettre en lumière la singularité du regard que chacun des réalisateurs porte sur la production du romancier. La thèse montre par là comment ces adaptations, qui émanent d’approches et de transferts bien distincts, au niveau du contexte comme des codes culturels, ont donné lieu à deux films aux différences très marquées, tant sur le plan thématique que qualitatif.

Outre la bibliographie, la filmographie et un index des noms figurant à la fin du manuscrit principal, les annexes qui composent le troisième volume offrent un fac-simile des scénarios originaux de La Nuit sacrée et de La Prière de l’absent, suivi du découpage séquentiel des deux films et de la transcription d’entretiens inédits avec les réalisateurs Nicolas Klotz et Hamid Bénani, ainsi qu’une sélection d’articles de presse.

Doctorat en Information et communication
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette thèse examine la représentation littéraire de migrations depuis des colonies vers les centres impériaux à l'époque de la décolonisation par l'analyse comparative de romans antillais en langue anglaise et maghrébins en langue française traitant d'immigration vers la Grande-Bretagne et la France respectivement. L'attention portée à la relation de domination est un point de convergence majeur. Lamming, Chraïbi et Kateb la présentent comme une relation coloniale ayant des effets tant économiques que psychologiques et culturels. Boudjedra et Ben Jelloun dans les années 1970 placent et l'immigration et la colonisation dans le cadre plus large de l'exploitation capitaliste. La représentation des conditions de vie difficiles et de la marginalisation des immigrés participe dans ces romans d'une critique générale de la modernité européenne. Les auteurs maghrébins dénoncent le caractère oppressant de la rationalité occidentale, tandis que les romanciers antillais se concentrent sur les racines coloniales de l'attitude des Britanniques face aux populations non-Européennes. Des deux côtés, on répond au discours colonialiste et à la représentation positive du colonisateur à travers la manipulation du point de vue et de la voix narratifs et le thème de la folie. La plupart des écrivains réfutent les images négatives des immigrés en insistant sur des aspects négligés, tels que la dimension émotionnelle de leur vécu et les tenants et aboutissants coloniaux des relations entre immigrés et autochtones. Ce faisant, leurs représentations finissent par se conformer à la figure de l'immigré sous-tendant les discours qu'ils dénoncent. Leurs préoccupations se distinguent de celles de générations d'auteurs ultérieures et de discours récents sur les populations d'origine maghrébine et antillaise en France et en Grande-Bretagne
This thesis examines the literary representation of migration from a colony to the imperial metropolis in the period of decolonisation through a comparative analysis of novels by Anglophone Caribbean and Francophone Maghribi writers about migration to Britain and France respectively. A major point of convergence is the focus on the relationship of domination. Lamming, Chraïbi and Kateb address this explicitly as a colonial relationship that is psychological and cultural as well as economic, whereas the 1970s writers Boudjedra and Ben Jelloun place both immigration and colonisation within a wider framework of capitalist exploitation. The difficult material conditions and the racism targeting immigrants are not depicted for their own sake but are the occasion of a wide-ranging critique of European modernity. Maghribi writers attack the rationality of Western civilisation as oppressive, whereas the Caribbean novelists focus on the colonial roots of attitudes to non-Europeans. Both sets of writers nonetheless provide responses to European colonialist discourse and to the positive self-presentation of the coloniser through the manipulation of narrative point of view and voice and through the theme of mental breakdown. Most of the novelists set out to refute negative representations of immigrants by restoring aspects they feel are neglected, in particular the emotional dimension of the immigrant experience and the colonial determinants of the relationship between immigrants and natives. In doing so their representations of immigration often conform to the immigrant figure underpinning the discourses they attack. Their preoccupations are distinct from those of later writers and recent discourses about Caribbean and Maghribi populations in Britain and France : with the exception of Selvon and, more ambiguously, Mengouchi and Ramdane, the novelists are not interested in the process of formation of ethnic-diasporic minorities in France and Britain

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively in literature and artwork. The war veteran—returning home transformed by the harsh realities of military training and service, having seen humanity at its extremes, and interacting with a society apathetic toward his or her experiences—should engage in the act of storytelling. This act of sharing experiences and crafting-self subverts stereotypes. Storytelling, whether in a book read by millions, or in a single conversation with a close family member, should instruct civilians on the topic of human resiliency; it should instruct veterans on the topic of homecoming. But typically, veterans do not tell stories. Civilians create barriers to storytelling in the form of hollow platitudes—“thank you for your service” or “I can never understand what you’ve been through”—disconnected from the meaning of wartime service itself. The dissonance between veteran and civilian only becomes more complicated when one considers the implicit demands and expectations attached to patriotism. These often well-intentioned gestures and government programs fail to convey a message of appreciation because they refuse to convey a message of acceptance; the exceptional treatment of veterans by larger society implies also that they are insufficient, broken, or incomplete. So, many veterans chose conformity and silence, adopting one of two identities available to them: the forever pitied “Wounded Warrior” or the superficially praised “Hero.” These identities are not complete. They’re not even identities as much as they are collections of rumors, misrepresentations, and expectations of conformity. Once an individual veteran begins unconsciously performing the “Wounded Warrior” or “Hero” character, the number of potential outcomes available in that individual’s life is severely diminished. Society reinforces a feeling among veterans that they are “different.” This shared experience has resulted in commiseration, camaraderie, and also the proliferation of veterans’ creative communities. As storytellers, the members of these communities are restoring meaning to veteran-civilian discourse by privileging the nuanced experiences of the individual over stereotypes and emotionless rhetoric. They are instructing on the topics of war and homecoming, producing fictional and nonfictional representations of the veteran capable of competing with stereotypes, capable of reassimilation. The Introduction establishes the existence of veteran culture, deconstructs notions of there being a single or binary set of veteran identities, and critiques the social and cultural rhetoric used to maintain symbolic boundaries between veterans and civilians. It begins by establishing an approach rooted in interdisciplinary literary theory, taking veteran identity as its topic of consideration and the American unconscious as the text it seeks to examine, asking readers to suspend belief in patriotic rhetoric long enough to critically examine veteran identity as an apparatus used to sell war to each generation of new recruits. Patriotism, beyond the well-meaning gestures and entitlements afforded to veterans, also results in feelings of “difference,” in the veteran feeling apart from larger society. The inescapability of veteran “difference” is a trait which sets it apart from other cultures, and it is one bolstered by inaccurate and, at times, offensive portrayals of veterans in mass media and Hollywood films such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), First Blood (1982), or Taxi Driver (1976). To understand this inescapability the chapter engages with theories of race, discussing the Korean War veteran in Home (2012) and other works by Toni Morrison to directly and indirectly explore descriptions of “difference” by African Americans and “others” not in positions of power. From there, the chapter traces veteran identity back to the Italian renaissance, arguing that modern notions of veteran identity are founded upon fears of returning veterans causing chaos and disorder. At the same time, writers such as Sebastian Junger, who are intimately familiar with veteran culture, repeatedly emphasize the camaraderie and “tribal” bonds found among members of the military, and instead of creating symbolic categories in which veterans might exist exceptionally as “Heroes,” or pitied as “Wounded Warriors,” the chapter argues that the altruistic nature which leads recruits to war, their capabilities as leaders and educators, and the need of larger society for examples of human resiliency are more appropriate starting points for establishing veteran identity. The Introduction is followed by an independent “Example” section, a brief examination of a student veteran named “Bingo,” one who demonstrates an ability to challenge, even employ veteran stereotypes to maintain his right to self-definition. Bingo’s story, as told in a “spotlight” article meant to attract student veterans to a college campus, portrays the veteran as a “Wounded Warrior” who overcomes mental illness and the scars of war through education, emerging as an exceptional example—a “Hero”—that other student veterans can model by enrolling at the school. Bingo’s story sets the stage for close examinations of the “Hero” and the “Wounded Warrior” in the first and second chapters. Chapter One deconstructs notions of heroism, primarily the belief that all veterans are “Heroes.” The chapter examines military training and indoctrination, Medal of Honor award citations, and film examples such as All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Heroes for Sale (1933), Sergeant York (1941), and Top Gun (1986) to distinguish between actual feats of heroism and “Heroes” as they are presented in patriotic rhetoric. The chapter provides the Medal of Honor citations attached to awards presented to Donald Cook, Dakota Meyer, and Kyle Carpenter, examining the postwar lives of Meyer and Carpenter, identifying attempts by media and government officials to appropriate heroism—to steal the right to self-definition possessed by these men. Among these Medal of Honor recipients one finds two types of heroism: Sacrificing Heroes give something of themselves to protect others; Attacking Heroes make a difference during battle offensively. Enduring Heroes, the third type of heroism discussed in the chapter, are a new construct. Colloquially, and for all intents and purposes, an Enduring Hero is simply a veteran who enjoys praise and few questions. Importantly, veterans enjoy the “Hero Treatment” in exchange for silence and conforming to larger narratives which obfuscate past wars and pave the way for new ones. This chapter engages with theorists of gender—such as Jack Judith Halberstam, whose Female Masculinities (1998) anticipates the agency increasingly available to women through military service; like Leo Braudy, whose From Chivalry to Terrorism (2003) traces the historical relationship between war and gender before commenting on the evolution of military masculinity—to discuss the relationship between heroism and agency, begging a question: What do veterans have to lose from the perpetuation of stereotypes? This question frames a detailed examination of William A. Wellman’s film, Heroes for Sale (1933), in the chapter’s final section. This story of stolen valor and the Great Depression depicts the homecoming of a WWI veteran separated from his heroism. The example, when combined with a deeper understanding of the intersection between veteran identity and gender, illustrates not only the impact of stolen valor in the life of a legitimate hero, but it also comments on the destructive nature of appropriation, revealing the ways in which a veteran stereotypes rob service men and women of the right to draw upon memories of military service which complete with those stereotypes. The military “Hero” occupies a moral high ground, but most conceptions of military “Heroes” are socially constructed advertisements for war. Real heroes are much rarer. And, as the Medal of Honor recipients discussed in the chapter reveal, they, too, struggle with lifelong disabilities as well as constant attempts by society to appropriate their narratives. Chapter Two traces the evolution of the modern “Wounded Warrior” from depictions of cowardice in Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage (1895), to the denigration of World War I veterans afflicted with Shell Shock, to Kevin Powers’s Iraq War novel, The Yellow Birds (2012). As with “Heroes,” “Wounded Warriors” perform a stereotype in place of an authentic, individualized identity, and the chapter uses Walt Kowalski, the protagonist of Clint Eastwood’s film, Gran Torino (2008), as its major example. The chapter discusses “therapeutic culture,” Judith Butler’s work on identity-formation, and Eva Illouz’s examination of a culture obsessed with trauma to comment on veteran performances of victimhood. Butler’s attempts to conceive of new identities absent the influence of systems of definition rooted in the state, in particular, reveal power in the opposite of silence, begging another question: What do civilians have to gain from the perpetuation of veteran stereotypes? Largely, the chapter finds, the “Wounded Warrior” persists in the minds of civilians who fear the veteran’s capacity for violence. A broken, damaged veteran is less of a threat. The story of the “Wounded Warrior” is not one of sacrifice. The “Wounded Warrior” exists after sacrifice, beyond any measure of “honor” achieved in uniform. “Wounded Warriors” are not expected to find a cure because the wound itself is an apparatus of the state that is commodified and injected into the currency of emotional capitalism. This chapter argues that military service and a damaged psyche need not always occur together. Following the second chapter, a close examination of “The Bear That Stands,” a short story by Suzanne S. Rancourt which confronts the author’s sexual assault while serving in the Marines, offers an alternative to both the “Hero” and the “Wounded Warrior” stereotypes. Rancourt, a veteran “Storyteller,” gives testimony of that crime, intervening in social conceptions of veteran identity to include a female perspective. As with the example of Bingo, the author demonstrates an innate ability to recognize and challenge the stereotypes discussed in the first and second chapters. This “Example” sets the stage for a more detailed examination of “Veteran Storytellers” and their communities in the final chapter. Chapter Three looks for examples of veteran “difference,” patriotism, the “Wounded Warrior,” and the “Hero” in nonfiction, fiction, and artwork emerging from the creative arts community, Military Experience and the Arts, an organization which provides workshops, writing consultation, and publishing venues to veterans and their families. The chapter examines veteran “difference” in a short story by Bradley Johnson, “My Life as a Soldier in the ‘War on Terror.’” In “Cold Day in Bridgewater,” a work of short fiction by Jerad W. Alexander, a veteran must confront the inescapability of that difference as well as expectations of conformity from his bigoted, civilian bartender. The final section analyzes artwork by Tif Holmes and Giuseppe Pellicano, which deal with the problems of military sexual assault and the effects of war on the family, respectively. Together, Johnson, Alexander, Holmes, and Pellicano demonstrate skills in recognizing stereotypes, crafting postwar identities, and producing alternative representations of veteran identity which other veterans can then draw upon in their own homecomings. Presently, no unified theory of veteran identity exists. This dissertation begins that discussion, treating individual performances of veteran identity, existing historical, sociological, and psychological scholarship about veterans, and cultural representations of the wars they fight as equal parts of a single text. Further, it invites future considerations of veteran identity which build upon, challenge, or refute its claims. Conversations about veteran identity are the opposite of silence; they force awareness of war’s uncomfortable truths and homecoming’s eventual triumphs. Complicating veteran identity subverts conformity; it provides a steady stream of traits, qualities, and motivations that veterans use to craft postwar selves. The serious considerations of war and homecoming presented in this text will be useful for Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans attempting to piece together postwar identities; they will be useful to scholars hoping to facilitate homecoming for future generations of war veterans. Finally, the Afterword to the dissertation proposes a program for reassimilation capable of harnessing the veteran’s symbolic and moral authority in such a way that self-definition and homecoming might become two parts of a single act.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Notre Dame, 2005.
Thesis directed by Catherine Perry for the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. "July 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-81).

Examining the place of immigrants in French society between 1950 and 1990, this dissertation traces both official policies and public reactions toward immigration, and immigrant responses to their treatment. Increased negative perceptions of North Africans during the 1970s and 80s, and escalating acts of violence and discrimination against them, sparked a national debate on the compatibility of Islam with French identity. North Africans’ presence in France seemed to throw into question common notions of “Frenchness” because the practices that characterized Islamic culture differentiated Muslims from other ethnic and religious minorities. I investigated North African, West African, and Antillean immigrant communities in Paris through the intersection of race, religion, and culture in order to explore changing French attitudes toward ethnic minorities and their cultural identities. My dissertation focuses on how these communities were or were not accepted into the French “nation,” and what their integration or lack thereof said about conceptions of what it meant to be “French.” In addition to offering a study of the government’s role in establishing or modifying perceptions about French identity, I also evaluate race and culture from the perspective of the immigrants themselves. This project thus offers an analysis of immigrants of color and the discourses and policies of the institutions that helped define certain ethnic groups encoded as “racially other” as also culturally inassimilable. The dissertation argues that the state’s construction of racially distinct citizens and immigrant communities as different limited their access to the nation and their acceptance by the general public. In the 1980s, the growing popularity of extreme right political rhetoric glorifying the nation and its supposed heritage gave voice to racism and fears of losing a uniquely French culture. An implicit racial hierarchy prevented immigrant groups and ethnic minorities from fully integrating into the nation. At the same time, ethnic groups from North Africa, West Africa, and the Antilles worked to redefine “Frenchness” along more inclusive lines in order to minimize tensions and improve relations between these groups and those who seemed more unquestionably “French.”

The second French colonial empire (1830-1962) challenged soldiers, scholars, and administrators to understand societies radically different from their own so as to govern them better. Overlooking the contributions of many of these colonial officials, most historians have located the genesis of the French social theory used to understand these differences in the hallowed halls of Parisian universities and research institutes. This dissertation instead argues that colonial experience and study drove metropolitan theory. Through a contextualized examination of the published and unpublished writings and correspondence of key thinkers who bridged the notional metropolitan-colonial divide, this dissertation reveals intellectual networks that produced knowledge of societies in North and West Africa and contemplated the nature of colonial rule. From General Louis Faidherbe in the 1840s to politician Jacques Soustelle and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in the 1950s, a succession of soldiers and administrators engaged in dialogue with their symbiotic colonial sources to translate indigenous ideas for a metropolitan audience and humanize French rule in Africa. Developing ideas in part from a reading of native African written and oral sources, these particular colonial thinkers conceived of social structure and race in civilizational terms, placing peoples along a temporally-anchored developmental continuum that promised advancement along a unique pathway if nurtured by a properly adapted program of Western intervention. This perspective differed significantly from the theories proposed by social scientists such as Emile Durkheim, who described "primitivity" as a stage in a unilinear process of social evolution. French African political and social structures incorporated elements of this intellectual direction by the mid-twentieth century, culminating in the attempt by Jacques Soustelle to govern Algeria with the assistance of ethnological institutions. At the same time, Pierre Bourdieu built on French ethnological ideas in an empirically grounded and personally contingent alternative to the dominant structuralist sociological and anthropological perspective in France.

Approached as an interdisciplinary study, this dissertation considers colonial knowledge from a number of different angles. First, it is a history of French African ethnology viewed through a biographical and microhistorical lens. Thus, it reintroduces the variance in the methods and interpretations employed by individual scholars and administrators that was a very real part of both scientific investigation and colonial rule. Race, civilization, and progress were not absolutes; definitions and sometimes applications of these terms varied according to local and personal socio-cultural context. This study also considers the evolution of French social theory from a novel perspective, that of the amateur fieldworker in the colonies. Far from passive recipients of metropolitan thought, these men (and sometimes women) actively shaped metropolitan ideas on basic social structure and interaction as they emerged. In the French science de l'homme, intellectual innovation came not always from academics in stuffy rooms, but instead from direct interaction and dialogue with the subjects of study themselves.

Dissertation

D.Litt. et Phil.
The broad aim of the present study was an exploration of the representation of women in the novels of the Maghreb written in French. Two questions provided obvious and logical starting points: Is the fairly aggressive feminism that is so integral to current Western writing equally evident in the fiction of countries where the position of women is governed by religious conviction? Does the fiction emanating from the pens of male authors differ, in the way it reflects this problem, from the fiction written by women?