- Title Information
- Title
- A Family Affair: Representations of the Family Through the French-Algerian War
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Sevcik, Stefanie Alicia
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- creator
- Origin Information
- Copyright Date
- 2016
- Physical Description
- Extent
- 6, 324 p.
- digitalOrigin
- born digital
- Note
- Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2016)
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Azoulay, Ariella
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Director
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Muhanna, Elias
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Mostefai, Ourida
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Bekhechi, Amine
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Corporate
- Name Part
- Brown University. Comparative Literature
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- sponsor
- Genre (aat)
- theses
- Abstract
- My dissertation investigates connections between the family sphere and politics during the rise of Algerian nationalism through the French-Algerian War (1954-1962). Specifically, it examines ways that family relationships are represented by a variety of semi-autobiographical novels and journals in comparison to legal, political, and cultural idealizations of it. I argue that turning to representations of the family can account for some of the silences inherent within the binarized political rhetoric.
The first chapter lays out the political and cultural development of Algeria over the period of French rule from roughly 1830-1962. Throughout the chapter I trace political, social, religious, and literary movements concerned with colonial and anti-colonial forms of national unity paying particular attention to articulations of family language such as brotherhood, illegitimate children, and good sons.
The second chapter deals with political and personal commitments to being a “good son” from the perspective of three liminal identities: a poor pied-noir (Albert Camus), an Arab Jew (Jacques Derrida), and a French-educated Kabyle peasant (Mouloud Feraoun). I compare Camus's representations of mother-son relationships with those of Derrida showing that their mothers (and Algeria) act as absent presences underscoring their work. Finally, in Feraoun, we see a fuller picture of family history as well as the nation's history.
In the third chapter, I investigate illegitimate relationships in the development of Kateb Yacine's character, Nedjma, throughout his oeuvre to challenge the claim that she represents an allegory for Algeria. Her elusiveness challenges traditional forms of womanhood and nationalism.
In the final chapter, I continue my discussion of the roles of Algerian women in the war comparing representations in newspapers and historical accounts with Assia Djebar's early novel, Les Enfants du nouveau monde,Gillo Pontecorvo's film, The Battle of Algiers, and interviews. Each supplements the idealized or absent accounts of women with the revolutionary “everydayness” of their struggle against oppression. In all three cases, women develop new languages and ways of inhabiting their roles as mothers, wives, and sisters changing their status inside and outside of the home.
- Subject
- Topic
- French-Algerian War
- Subject
- Topic
- Albert Camus
- Subject
- Topic
- Jacques Derrida
- Subject
- Topic
- Assia Djebar
- Subject
- Topic
- Mouloud Feraoun
- Subject
- Topic
- family politics
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/36855")
- Name
- Name Part
- Camus, Albert
- Name Part:
Date
- 1913-1960
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/41147")
- Name
- Name Part
- Derrida, Jacques
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/137798")
- Name
- Name Part
- Djebar, Assia
- Name Part:
Date
- 1936-2015
- Subject (FAST)
(authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/42388")
- Name
- Name Part
- Feraoun, Mouloud
- Record Information
- Record Content Source (marcorg)
- RPB
- Record Creation Date
(encoding="iso8601")
- 20160629
- Language
- Language Term:
Code (ISO639-2B)
- eng
- Language Term:
Text
- English
- Identifier:
DOI
- 10.7301/Z03N21TG
- Access Condition:
rights statement
(href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
- In Copyright
- Access Condition:
restriction on access
- Collection is open for research.
- Type of Resource (primo)
- dissertations