Lecture empathique et trauma de la guerre d’Algérie chez Assia Djebar, Boualem Sansal et Leila Sebbar

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-74
Author(s):  
Kirsten Husung
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
The Other ◽  
Assia Djebar ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
Leila Sebbar ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Imaginative Resistance ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Moral Convictions

This article analyses the narrative processes and literary strategies that seek to engender the reader’s empathy for the main characters in three Francophone texts that depict the trauma of the Algerian War of independence. Each text starts from a real event by intertwining historical facts and the present with fiction, allowing for a better understanding of the postcolonial situation. These expectations are reinforced by Djebar’s and Sansal’s paratexts. Drawing on the theories of Suzanne Keen and Fritz Breithaupt empathy can especially be favoured by internal focalization, the characters’ empathic interpersonal relationships as well as polyphony. The imaginative construction of the other is emphasized as necessary, while the detailed description of historical facts may rather provoke feelings of pity. A fortiori, empathy can decline or be blocked in the passages, which go against the moral convictions of the reader. This imaginative resistance is due to the fact that these passages concern reality and not fiction

Revolutionary Memoirs: Assia Djebar and Latifa al-Zayyat

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahia Abdel Nasser
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women Writers ◽  
Assia Djebar ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
Arab Women ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
National Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Nation

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.

Unearthing the father’s secret: postmemory and identity in harki and pied noir narratives

2018 ◽  
pp. 153-177
Author(s):  
Véronique Machelidon
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
The Other ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
French Society ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
The Individual

Focusing on memories of the Algerian War of Independence, this article follows historian Benjamin Stora’s call to find common memorial spaces and bridge the gap between different memory groups involved in a traumatic past. It compares two literary works from different postcolonial constituencies, one written by a harki daughter, Dalila Kerchouche, and the other by a pied-noir son, Thierry Galdeano, both of which have at their core the search for the father’s secret linked to his role in the war. The discovery of the father’s mystery takes each narrator-protagonist on a postmemorial quest that results in personal growth, helping the two protagonists find their identity and place within French society. The article argues that only the pied noir son performs the reconciliation between harki and pied noir experiences, thus pointing to the possible creation of the sort of memorial bridge that can end the individual trauma and collective amnesia that are the postcolonial legacies of the Algerian War of Independence.

Memories of a French Migration Crisis

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Laura Jeanne Sims
Keyword(s):  
Algerian War ◽  
African Origin ◽  
North African ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Internment Camps ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
North African Origin

This chapter examines how the French state created a crisis through its management of the arrival and installation of the Harkis in 1962. The Harkis, Algerians of North African origin who supported the French army during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), faced reprisal violence in Algeria at the end of the war and many were forced to migrate with their families to France. In response, French officials attempted to prevent the Harkis from escaping to France and placed some of those who succeeded in internment camps. Comparing the treatment of the Harkis with that of the Pieds-Noirs, the descendants of European settlers in Algeria who likewise fled to France in 1962, highlights the structural racism underlying French perceptions of and reactions to Harki migration. This chapter also explores the ways in which second-generation Harkis have constructed collective memories of the crisis and their attempts to hold the state responsible for its actions.

6. Hybridity

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-90
Author(s):  
Robert J. C. Young
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
American Music ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
African American Music ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
The Us

‘Hybridity’ explains that cultural hybridity can be seen as an expansion of W. E. B. Du Bois’ concept of ‘double consciousness’: a painful incompatibility between how people see themselves and how society sees them only in terms of their race. Nevertheless, this has also formed the basis of the extraordinary cultural creativity of African-Americans. Drawing on cultural memory of their African roots, African-Americans have adapted and transformed aspects of European culture encountered in the US, particularly noticeable in the realm of African-American music. A comparable development of a hybridized culture is considered by tracing the emergence of raï music in 1970s Algeria, following the traumatic experiences of the Algerian War of Independence.

Algerian Nationalism: From the Origins to Algerian War of Independence

2017 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Marisa Fois
Keyword(s):  
Algerian War ◽  
International Context ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Colonial Order ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Independent Country

Arab nationalism is not a monolithic construct. In the case of Algeria, the nationalist period undoubtedly played a significant role in determining the nature of its nationalist movement, its foundational principles and the nature of the future independent country. It was during the nationalist period that disputes regarding the colonial order, autonomy versus independence and the definition of Algerian identity emerged. The anti-colonial revolution occurred after a long period of gestation, the result of a combination of people’s spontaneous initiative, the action of forces fed by new or existing ideas and the influence of the international context. This article provides an overview of Algerian nationalism—including both Arab and Berber nationalisms—from the 1920s to the 1950s, identifying parties, leaders and currents of thought.

What You See Is What You Get

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Alexandra Binnenkade
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Textbook Analysis ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
French History ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Visual Knowledge ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Verbal Content

French history textbooks occupy a pivotal position in the colonial fracture. They impart difficult knowledge about the Algerian War of Independence, knowledge that impacts the relationships between the communities of memory in France today. Textbook analysis has focused on their verbal content and, recently, in the work of Jo McCormack, on corresponding teaching practices. This article highlights graphic design as one layer of visual knowledge production and primarily contributes to the methodology of textbook analysis with an exemplary multimodal analysis. It reveals a hidden narrative about the postcolonial relationship that is not expressed in words.

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