North Africa: Literature and Film

This course will examine North African Francophone literature and cinema fromthe colonial era to the present, and focus on its marginal status vis-à-vis bothcontinental France and the indigenous culture of the Maghrib. We will payattention to the historical hiatus between the first generation of francophonewriters such as Mohamed Dib and Albert Memmi who primarily deal with theFrench colonial rule and decolonization, and more recent writers and criticssuch as Rachid O., Azouz Begag, and Fatima Mernissi, who are concernedwith homosexuality, Beur culture, and the issue of the veil. These readings willbe complemented by films such as The Battle of Algiers and Bab El-Oued Cityand critical writings by Frantz Fanon, Jarrod Hayes, Paul Silverstein amongothers, to introduce students to the issues contemporary North Africa is facing.This course is taught in French.