Spring 2020 | Harvard University
This graduate course links different regions of the Francophone world and provides an introduction to the major debates about gender issues in postcolonial Francophone studies. We focus on the aesthetics and politics of writers who challenge the notion of a stable identity, be it national, racial or sexual. The course draws on the historico-cultural issues pertinent to each region (Africa, the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean). Writers include Mariama Bâ (Senegal), Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe/France/USA), Ananda Devi (Mauritius and France), Fatou Diome (Senegal and France), Assia Djebar (Algeria/France/USA), Marie Chauvet (Haiti), Shenaz Patel (Mauritius), and Linda Lê (Vietnam and France).
General
Readings and Films
Primary Texts (alphabetical by author):
Tahar Ben Jelloun, L'enfant de sable
Marie Chauvet, "Amour"
Maryse Condé, Histoire de la femme cannibale (Mercure de France)
Ananda Devi, Indian Tango (Gallimard)
Fatou Diome, Le ventre de l'Atlantique (Anne Carrière)
Assia Djebar, Nulle part dans la maison de mon père (first half only, pdf)
Fabienne Kanor, Humus (Gallimard)
Linda Lê, "Lettre morte"
Shenaz Patel, Le silence des Chagos (Editions de l’Olivier)
Ousmane Sembène, "La Noire de…."
Films:
David Constantin, Diego l'interdite (2002)
Marina Kem, Bonne nuit, Papa (2014) (trailer)
Ousmane Sembène, La Noire de... (1966) (full length)
Moussa Traoré, La Pirogue (2012)
Jan 29: Introductions - From Nation to Trans/Nation and Unbelonging
Topics include migration and the lure of Western culture, displacement and the difference gender makes, and an introduction to minor transnationalism.
Readings:
Renan, "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?" + short texts on "Nation," "Nationalism," "Creole and Creolization"
Feb 5: European Others
Readings
Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih, Minor Transnationalism (Duke University Press), (Introduction only, in course files)
Film
Ousmane Sembène, La Noire de… (1966) (Watch here )
Feb 12: The Lure of Europe
The continuing lure of Europe:
Readings
Wright, J. M. (2013). “Literature and nationalism.”, M. A. R. Habib (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (pp. 97–114).
Fatou Diome, Le ventre de l’Atlantique (Anne Carrière, 2003)
Interview
Fatou Diome, “Le mythe de la France eldorado” (INA Archive, 2014):
Film
Moussa Touré, La Pirogue (2012)
Audio (recommended while reading):
Feb 19: Narrative, Gender Bending, and Muslim Traditions
Reading:
Tahar Ben Jelloun, L’enfant de sable (Seuil, 1985)
Supplementary Resources:
Feb 26: Gender and Unbelonging, Aesthetics and Identity
Readings
Assia Djebar, Nulle part dans la maison de mon père (first half only, pdf)
March 4: Migrancy and Statelessness in the Indian Ocean
Readings & Media:
Shenaz Patel, Le silence des Chagos (Éditions de l’Olivier, 2005)
David Constantin, Diego l’interdite (2002) (film)
David Vine, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia, Chapters 1–2
Recommended: Waters on “Introduction: The Problem of Belonging in Mauritius” and Belonging Nowhere: Shenaz Patel’s Le Silence des Chagos
Nikhita Obeegadoo on migration and displacement
March 11: Migration and Transnationalism (with Prof. Siskind)
Readings:
Jacques Derrida, “Le mot d’accueil,” in Adieu à Emmanuel Levinas
Julia Kristeva, Étrangers à nous-mêmes, Chapters 1 and 8
Mar 25: Memory, Resistance, and the Body: Cannibalism as Metaphor
Readings & Media
Maryse Condé, Histoire de la femme cannibale (Mercure de France, 2003)
Apr 1: Slavery, Memory, and Erasure
Readings & Media:
Fabienne Kanor, Humus (Gallimard, 2006)
Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, Section III, pp. 86–120
Recommended:
Interview with Fabienne Kanor: "Five Questions for Fabienne Kanor"
Apr 8: (Part 1) Postcolonial Citizens and Trauma - France and Indochina/Vietnam
Part 1 Readings & Media
Linda Lê, “Lettre morte”
Film: Marina Kem, Bonne nuit, papa (2014)
Essays by Sara Collie and Siobhan McIlvanney
(Part 2) Indian Ocean Sexualities
Reading
Ananda Devi, Indian Tango (Gallimard, 2007)
Apr 15: Redrawing the Boundaries?
Readings:
Françoise Lionnet, “Universalisms and francophonies” (2009, 2020), Donadey & Murdoch; François Cusset; Alec Hargreaves et al.; Françoise Lionnet (2003)
Preliminary Theoretical and Historical Research Bibliography
Transnationalism, Feminism, and the State
Norma Alarcón, Caren Kaplan, and Minoo Moallem, “Introduction” in Between Woman and Nation (1999)
Kondo, D. “Fabricating Masculinity” in About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theater (1st ed.). Routledge (1997), pp. 153-183.
Minoo Moallem, “Transnationalism, Feminism, and Fundamentalism,” in Between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms, Transnational Feminisms, and the State (1999), pp. 1–18, 286–348.
Nation, Identity, and Community
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (1983, 1991), Preface to 2nd ed., pp. 1–66, 187–206. Homi Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration (1990) — includes Renan’s “What is a Nation?” Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (1882)
Postcolonial and Francophone Theory
Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia (2005), pp. 1–26.
Anne Donadey, Recasting Postcolonialism: Women Writing Between Worlds (2001).
Adlai Murdoch and Anne Donadey, eds., Postcolonial Theory and Francophone Literary Studies (2004).
Ato Quayson and Anjali Prabhu, “Francophone Studies / Postcolonial Studies: 'Postcolonializing' through Relation,” in Murdoch & Donadey, pp. 224–34.
Anjali Prabhu, “Fanon, Memmi, Glissant and Postcolonial Writing,” in The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, vol. II (2011), pp. 1068–1099.
Francophone Women’s Writing and Theory
Françoise Lionnet, Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity (1995), pp. 1–21, 69–86.
“Introduction,” in Francophone Studies: New Landscapes, MLN 118.4 (2003), pp. 783–786.
“Continents and Archipelagoes,” PMLA 123.5 (2008), pp. 1503–1515.
Le su et l’incertain (2012).
Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih, “Thinking Through the Minor, Transnationally,” in Minor Transnationalism (2005), pp. 1–23.
Véronique Bragard and Srilata Ravi, Écritures mauriciennes au féminin: penser l’altérité (2011).
Alison Rice, Polygraphies: Francophone Women Writing Algeria (2012).
Mary Jean Green et al., eds., Postcolonial Subjects: Francophone Women Writers (1996): “Introduction,” ix–xi
Ronnie Scharfman, “Theorizing Terror: Marie Chauvet,” pp. 229–245;
Erickson, John. “Women’s Voices and Women’s Space in Assia Djebar’s L’Amour, La Fantasia.” Chapter 2 in Islam and Postcolonial Narrative, 37–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1998), pp. 304–344.
Mauritian and Indian Ocean Studies
Kumari Issur, “L’Alter/mondialisme: imaginaires mauriciens et solidarités transnationales,” Nouvelles Études Francophones 28.2 (2013): 13–26.
Bruno Jean-François, “Les récits mauriciens contemporains et la nouvelle ‘thalassologie’,” Revue des sciences humaines (2020).
Odile Cazenave, Afrique sur Seine: A New Generation of African Writers in Paris (2005).
Diaspora, Migration, and Cultural Mobility
Ulrich Beck, What is Globalization? (2000), pp. 1–15, 72–86.
Peter Hitchcock, Imaginary States: Studies in Cultural Transnationalism (2003), pp. 1–26.
Stephen Greenblatt, “Introduction,” in Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto (2010), pp. 1–23.
Charles Gueboguo, “L’homosexualité en Afrique,” Socio-logos [Online], 1 | 2006.
Gender, Race, and Power
Colette Guillaumin, Sexe, Race et Pratique du Pouvoir (1992), pp. 13–82, 207–218.
Elleke Boehmer, “Edward Said and (the Postcolonial Occlusion of) Gender,” in Ranjan Ghosh, ed., Edward Said and the Literary, Social, and Political World (2009), pp. 124–136.
Uzo Esonwanne, “Enlightenment Epistemology and 'Aesthetic Cognition': Bâ's So Long a Letter,” in Obioma Nnaemeka, ed., The Politics of (M)othering (1997), pp. 82–100.
Susan Andrade, The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminisms, 1958–1988 (2011), pp. 1–43 (+ pp. 71–113 on Bâ).
Myriam Chancy, Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women (1997);
François Cusset, French Theory: Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Co. and the Mutation of French Intellectual Life in the United States (2003), Chaps. 13–14 and Conclusion, pp. 301–352.
Additional Works
Vlad Dima, “Ousmane Sembene’s La Noire de…: Melancholia in Photo, Text, and Film,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 26.1 (2014): 56–68.
Martin Munro, Tropical Apocalypse: Haiti and the Caribbean End Times (2014).
Elizabeth Mudimbe-Boyi, ed., Empire Lost: France and Its Other Worlds (2009): “Introduction,” xix–xxiii; Mireille Rosello, “We, the Virtual Francophone Multitudes,” pp. 47–66.
Alec Hargreaves, Charles Forsdick, and David Murphy, Transnational French Studies: Postcolonialism and littérature-monde (2010), pp. 1–14, and selected essays by Murphy, Moudileno, Hiddleston, and Garane.
Tyler Stovall and George Van Den Abbeele, eds., “Introduction,” in French Civilization and Its Discontents: Nationalism, Colonialism, Race (2003), pp. 1–15.
Ranjana Khanna, Algeria Cuts: Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present (2008), pp. 103–138.