This thesis, situated in the context of francophone and maghrebian postcolonial studies, examines the impact of identity discourses on the protagonists’ subjectivity in Assia Djebar’s La Femme sans sépulture (2002) and La Disparition de la langue française (2003) and Nina Bouraoui’s Garçon manqué (2000) and Mes mauvaises pensées (2005). These novels draw a parallel between two historically connected spaces, France and Algeria, and periods,  the years of the Algerian war of independence and the rise of Islamists in 1990s  Algeria. The movement between the two spaces and periods constitutes in a literal and figurative sense a third space that contributes to the protagonist’s hybridisation. Hybridity is analysed as a narrative and discursive strategy that subverts and recodifies different identity dis­courses that transmit normative ideas about cultural, ethnic and gendered belonging. Hybridity is also shown in the literary genre. By connecting the past and the present through individual and collective reminiscence, the four novels reinterpret history while transgressing the frontiers of classical genres: the fictional, the testimonial and the autobiographical intertwine with the historiographical. Through the character of the narrator-cineaste and the story of Zoulikha, Assia Djebar reconstitutes in La Femme sans sépulture her own heritage and that of the interviewed women which is associated with Luce Irigaray’s theory of feminine genealogy as a model of identification. The languages’ different transcultural influences are shown in La Disparition de la langue française in the light of Homi Bhabha’s theory of cultural translation. Bouraoui’s fiction shows more radically than Djebar’s the body as a surface of cultural inscription, determined by ethnic and gendered norms. To emphasize the sociocultural dimension of the Bouraouian protagonist’s problems of identity the analysis uses Judith Butler’s theories about the performativity, the recognition and the melancholy of gender. In the four novels the return to one’s origins remains an illusion. The only place where the protagonists can negotiate and express their hybrid subjectivity is constituted in and through their writing. / Cette thèse, située dans le contexte des études francophones maghrébines et postcoloniales, analyse l’impact des discours identitaires sur la subjectivité des protagonistes dans La Femme sans sépulture (2002) et La Disparition de la langue française (2003) d’Assia Djebar, et dans Garçon manqué (2000) et Mes mauvaises pensées (2005) de Nina Bouraoui. Ces romans  mettent en parallèle deux espaces historiquement liés, la France et l’Algérie, et deux périodes, le temps de la guerre d’indépendance algérienne et les années 1990 avec la montée des islamistes en Algérie. Le mouvement entre les deux espaces et temps constitue au sens littéral et au sens figuré un tiers espace, qui contribue à l’hybridation des protagonistes. L’hybridité est analysée comme une stratégie narrative et discursive qui subvertit et récodifie différents discours identitaires véhiculant des idées normatives concernant l’appartenance culturelle, ethnique et genrée des protagonistes. L’hybridation se reflète également dans le genre littéraire. À travers la remémoration individuelle et collective des événements passés mis en rapport avec le présent, les quatre romans donnent une nouvelle signification à l’Histoire en transgressant les frontières entre les genres classiques : le fictionnel, le témoignage et l’autobiographique s’inscrivent dans l’historiographique. Moyennant le personnage de la narratrice-cinéaste et l’histoire de Zoulikha, Djebar reconstitue dans La Femme sans sépulture, son propre héritage et celle des femmes interviewées, ce qui est associé à la théorie de Luce Irigaray sur la généalogie féminine au sens d’un modèle d’identification. Les différentes influences transculturelles des langues sont éclairées dans La Disparition de la langue française à la lumière de la théorie de la traduction culturelle de Homi Bhabha. Bouraoui montre plus radicalement que Djebar le corps comme surface d’inscription culturelle gérée par des normes ethnicisantes et genrées. Pour souligner la dimension socioculturelle des problèmes identitaires de la protagoniste bouraouienne, les théories de Judith Butler concernant la performativité du genre, la reconnaissance et la mélancolie genrée sont utilisées. Le retour à l’origine reste dans les quatre romans illu­soire. Le seul lieu où les protagonistes puissent négocier et exprimer leur subjectivité hybride est constitué dans et à travers l’écriture.

This thesis focuses on documentaries by North African women, who have been marginalised within the limited space of the field of African filmmaking. I illustrate how North African cinema has suffered from neglect in studies on African as well as Arab culture and particularly African and Arab cinema. I discuss the work of four pioneering women documentary makers in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Consecutively I will discuss Ateyyat El Abnoudy, Selma Baccar, Assia Djebar and Izza Génini’s work. My approach is transnational and Bakhtinian in the sense that I am an outsider looking in. I promote a constant self-awareness as a Western European and an academic interested in the area that is defined as the Middle East. Like the documentary makers, I take the nation state as a starting point so as to understand its effects, in order to be able to critique it and place the films in a transnational context. The documentaries in this thesis illustrate that films of a socio-political nature contest the notion of a singular national identity and can become a means of self-definition. Asserting one’s own cultural and national identity, and subjectively offering the spectator an individual’s interpretation of that self-definition, is a way towards female emancipation. Going against the grain and avoiding stereotypes, evading censorship and dependence on state control, these directors find ways to give a different dimension to their identity. Analysing the work of these four pioneering filmmakers, I uncover diverse female subject matters treated by a similar aesthetic. I argue that through overlooked cinematic techniques, they succeed in subverting the censor and communicating a subtle but convincing critique of the patriarchal system in their respective countries. Their preoccupation with representing ‘the other half’ puts a new and under-explored spin on perceptions of anti-establishment filming with subtly emancipating consequences. I suggest that their common aesthetic is one that develops moderation in terms of context, content and style. There is a cinematic way of implicitly subverting not only the (colonial) past but also the (neo-colonial) present which goes further than re-inscription or compensation: new modes of resistance co-exist with the more rebellious and heroic ones. These women’s films rewrite, imply and contemplate rather than denounce and attack heroically. They do not reject as much as interrogate their situations, counting on the empathic and intersubjective abilities of the spectator. A relationship of trust between director, subject and spectator is crucial if we want to believe in the subalterns’ aptitude for voicing issues and gazing back. I reveal a different approach to communication beyond the verbal, and a belief in the subjects’ capacities to speak and listen. This is echoed in the filmmaker’s sensitive analysis of the subjects’ expression and voice and the non-vocal expression – the gaze. The intended outcome is dependent on the willingness of the spectator to take part in the intersubjective communication triangle. I conclude with the idea that moderation is the foundational concept of a post-Third Cinema transnational aesthetic in North Africa. Ateyyat El Abnoudy, Selma Baccar, Assia Djebar and Izza Génini are pioneers of women’s filmmaking in North Africa, who opened up a space for underrepresented subjects, voices and gazes.

Cette thèse analyse le mythe fondateur des Mille et une nuits, ou « mythe de Shéhérazade », par une approche psychanalytique et comparatiste. Nous mettons en évidence que le récit-cadre des Nuits constitue un récit mythique, miroir de l’imaginaire collectif, qui révèle la place de la femme, du féminin et du maternel dans le processus de civilisation.En effet, les Nuits s’ouvrent sur un double adultère et un double meurtre: deux femmes, sultanes, trompent leur époux avec un esclave noir. Ce désir féminin transgressif est le déclencheur de tout le recueil. Il constitue le péché originel qui entraîne la déchéance et le chaos. Shahrayar, tel le patriarche de la horde primitive freudienne, se venge et instaure le meurtre de la femme comme loi. La parole infinie de Shéhérazade, à la fois amante et mère, crée une zone transitionnelle féconde et mène le sultan à renoncer à la jouissance éphémère pour entrer dans le champ de la sublimation et du symbolique. Par la fonction symbolique du langage, la conteuse conduit le tyran à advenir sujet, parlêtre, soumis aux lois fondamentales de la civilisation.Nous analysons l’évolution de la dialectique du féminin, du maternel et des lois symboliques dans les réécritures, imitations, pastiches, perversions, parodies, tragédies, suites et adaptations musicales du mythe de Shéhérazade du XVIIIe au XXIe siècle. / This thesis analyzes the founding myth of the Arabian Nights, or « myth of Scheherazade », with a psychoanalytical and comparative approach. This research points that the frame story of the Nights is a mythical story that constitutes the mirror of the collective imagination, which reveals the place of the woman, the feminine and the maternal in the process of civilization.The Nights open on a double adultery and a double murder scene: two sultanas commit adultery with a black slave. This transgressive feminine desire is the trigger of the Arabian Nights' collection. It constitutes the original sin that leads to the forfeiture and the chaos. Shahrayar, such as the patriarch of the Freudian primal horde, decides to take revenge on them and institutes as a law the murder of women. The infinite word of Scheherazade, who is at the same time lover and mother, creates a transitional fertile space and leads the sultan to give up the temporally enjoyment to enter the field of the sublimation and symbolism. With the symbolic function of the language, the storyteller leads the tyrant to become parlêtre, subject to the fundamental laws of civilization.We examine the rewritings, imitations, pastiches, perversions, parodies, tragedies, continuations and musical adaptations of the myth of Scheherazade from eighteenth to the twenty-first century, to analyze the dialectic’s evolution of the feminine, the maternal and the symbolic laws.

No description available.

This study analyzes the experience of alienation from family and culture as portrayed in the personal narratives of francophone women. The authors appearing in this study are Assia Djebar and Marie Cardinal, from Algeria, Mariama Bâ and Ken Bugul, from Senegal, Marguerite Duras and Kim Lefèvre, from Vietnam, Calixthe Beyala, from Cameroon, Gabrielle Roy, from Canada, and Maryse Condé, from Guadeloupe. Alienation is deconstructed into the domains of blood, money, land, religion, education and history. The authors’ experiences of alienation in each domain are classified according to severity and cultural normativity. The study seeks to determine the manner in which alienation manifests in each domain, and to identify factors which aid or hinder recovery. Alienation in the domain of blood occurs as a result of warfare, illness, racism, ancestral trauma, and the rites of passage of menarche, loss of virginity, and menopause. Money-related alienation is linked to endemic classism, often caused by colonial influence. The authors experienced varying degrees of economic vulnerability to men, depending upon cultural and familial norms. Colonialism, warfare and environmental depending upon cultural and familial norms. Colonialism, warfare and environmental degradation all contribute to alienation in the domain of land. Women were found to be more susceptible to alienation in the domain of religion due to patriarchal religious constructs. In the domain of education, it was found that some alienation is inevitable for all students. Despite its inherent drawbacks, education provides tools for empowerment which are crucial for overcoming alienation. Alienation in the domain of history was found to hinder recovery due to infiltration of past trauma into the present, while empowerment in this domain fosters optimism and future-oriented thinking. Each domain offers opportunities for empowerment, and it is necessary to work within the domains to create a safe haven for recovery. Eight of the nine authors experienced at least a partial recovery from alienation. This was accomplished via cathartic release of negative emotions. Catharsis is achieved by shedding tears, talking, or writing about the negative experiences. The personal narrative was found to be especially helpful in promoting healing both for the author and the reading audience. / Classics and World Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (French)

“Telling Otherwise: Rewriting History, Gender, and Genre in Africa and the African Diaspora” examines counter-discursive postcolonial rewritings. In my first chapter, “Re-Writing the Canon,” I examine two works that rewrite canonical texts from the European tradition, Jean Rhys’s retelling of the life of Jane Eyre’s Bertha in Wide Sargasso Sea and Maryse Condé’s relocation of Wuthering Heights to the Caribbean in La migration des coeurs. In this chapter, I contend that re-writing functions not only as a response, as a “writing back” to the canon, but as a creative appropriation of and critical engagement with the canonical text and its worldview. My second chapter, “Re-Storying the Past,” examines fictional works that rewrite events from the historical past. The works that I study in this chapter are Assia Djebar’s recuperation of Algerian women’s resistance to French colonization in L’amour, la fantasia and Edwidge Danticat’s efforts to reconstruct the 1937 massacre of Haitians under Trujillo in The Farming of Bones. In my third chapter, “Re-Voicing Slavery,” I take for my subject neo-slave narratives that build on and revise the slave narrative genre of the late eighteenth- through early twentieth- centuries. The two works that I examine in this chapter are Sherley Anne Williams’s Dessa Rose and the poem sequence Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip, based on the 1781 murder of Africans aboard the slave ship Zong. My fourth chapter, “Re-Membering Gender,” examines texts that foreground the processes of re-writing and re-telling, both thematically and structurally, so as to draw attention to the ways in which discourses and identities are constructed. In their attempts to counter masculinist discourses, these works seek to re-inscribe gender into these discourses, a process of re-membering that engenders a radical deconstruction of fixed notions of identity. The works that I read in this chapter include Daniel Maximin’s L’Isolé soleil, which privileges the feminine and the multiple in opposition to patriarchal notions of single origins and authoritative narrative voices and Maryse Condé’s Traversée de la Mangrove, which rewrites Patrick Chamoiseau’s novel Solibo Magnifique so as to critique the exclusive nature of Caribbean identity in his notion of créolité. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 266-288).