Senior Seminar: Literature and Denunciation: The Awakening of the Maghreb
This course will focus on main novels by major Maghrebian authors from Algeria, Morocco, and France, which have given birth to a literature of identity and of transgression. As taboos are unveiled, sons and daughters denounce their societies by attacking fundamental Arabo-Muslim values, such as the family unit and religion, and by crititizing and opposing their fathers. We will explore the relationship between parents and children, husbands and wives, the role of sexuality and violence, gender issues, the importance of Islam among other themes. We will also examine the painful process of denunciation, the political act of writing, and the deliberate choice and use of the French language by replacing these works in a colonial, postcolonial, and post-independent historical context. This seminar will include an important research component. (Open to French Senior Majors, other students by waiver). 3 hrs. lect./disc.