This volume of essays explores what it is that has brought marginalized and often exiled writers, seen as treacherous, alienated, and/or queer by their societies and nations together by way of Paris. Spanning from the inter-war period of the late 1920s to the present millennium, this volume considers many seminal questions that have influenced and continue to shape the realm of exiled writers who have sought refuge in Paris in order to write. Additionally, the volume’s essays seek to define alienation and marginalization as not solely subscribing to any single denominator -- sexual preference, gender, or nationality-- but rather as shared modes of being that allow authors to explore what it is to write from abroad in a place that is foreign yet freed of the constrictions of one’s home space. What makes Paris a particularly fruitful space that has allowed these authors and their writings to cross national, ethnic, racial, religious, and linguistic boundaries for over a century? What is it that brings together writers such as Moroccan Abdellah Taïa, Americans James Baldwin, Richard Wright and, most recently, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Shay Youngblood, Algerian Nabile Farès, Franco-Algerian Leila Sebbar, Canadian Nancy Huston, French Jean Genet and French-Vietnamese Linda Lê? How do their representations and understanding of transgression and marginalization transcend national, linguistic and ethnic boundaries, leading ultimately to revolution, both literary and literal? How does their writing help us to trace the history of Paris as a literary and artistic capital that has been useful for authors’ exploration of the Self, race and home country? These are but a few of the many questions explored in this volume. This book relies on an inherently intersectional approach, which is not based in reified identities, whether they be LGBT, postcolonial, ethnic, national, or linguistic. Instead, we posit that, for example, queer theory, and a “politics of difference”i can help us investigate the dynamics of these multiple identity positions, and hence provide a broader understanding of the lived experiences of these writers, and, perhaps, their readers from the early 1940s to the present.

The year 2018 marked the fiftieth anniversary of May ’68, a startling, by now almost mythic event which combined seriousness, courage, humor and theatrics. The contributions of this volume—based on papers presented the conference Does “la lutte continue”? The Global Afterlife of May ’68 at Florida State University in March 2019—explore the ramifications of that springtime protest in the contemporary world. What has widely become known as the movement of ‘68 consisted, in fact, of many synchronous movements in different nations that promoted a great variety of political, social, and cultural agendas. While it is impossible to write a global history of ’68, this volume presents a kaleidoscope of different perceptions, reflections, and receptions of protest in France, Italy, and other nations that share in common a global utopian imaginary as expressed, for example, in the slogan: “All power to the imagination!” The contributions of this collection show that, while all social struggles are political, many lasting changes in individual mentalities and social structures originated from utopian ideas that were realized first in artistic productions and their aesthetic reception. In this respect the various protests of May ’68 continue.

In this first edited collection in English on Abdellah Taïa, Denis M. Provencher and Siham Bouamer frame the distinctiveness of the Moroccan author’s migration by considering current scholarship in French and Francophone studies, post-colonial studies, affect theory, queer theory, and language and sexuality. In contrast to critics that consider Taïa to immigrate and integrate successfully to France as a writer and intellectual, Provencher and Bouamer argue that the author’s writing is replete with elements of constant migration, “comings and goings,” cruel optimism, flexible accumulation of language over borders, transnational filiations, and new forms of belonging and memory making across time and space. At the same time, his constantly evolving identity emerges in many non-places, defined as liminal and border narrative spaces where unexpected and transgressive new forms of belonging emerge without completely shedding shame, mourning, or melancholy.

In Ethnic Minority Women’s Writing in France, Mouflard argues that the identity politics surrounding the immigration discourse of early twenty-first century France were reflected in the marketing and editing practices of the Metropole’s key publishers, specifically with regards to non-white French women’s literature. Echoing the utopic “Black-Blanc-Beur” model of integration which surfaced during the 1998 soccer World Cup, select publishers fashioned unofficial literary categories based on neocolonial racial and gender stereotypes, either lauding integrated “Beur” authors or exploiting “Black” political dissenters. Concurrently, metropolitan women writers in their autobiographies, autofictions, and manifestoes, problematized notions of French multiculturalism and literary hierarchies, thereby exposing the dangers of utopian thinking. Mouflard ultimately reveals that the absence of the Franco-Vietnamese identity from the “Black-Blanc-Beur” paradigm enabled authors of Southeastern Asian origin to establish themselves outside of the era’s reductive multicultural utopia, within a realm directly adjacent to littérature française, if not in a newly-designed, truly multicultural French literature category. Overall, Mouflard’s research highlights the discrepancies between France’s official discourse on immigration, and the actual identity formation processes created by the institutions and exploited by influential publishers, in the years leading to the historic 2005 banlieue civil unrest.

The Poetics of Contemporary Narratives in the Arabic Diaspora presents a captivating exploration of the rich tapestry of Middle Eastern diasporic literature, spanning the landscapes of Canada and France. With eloquent prose, the author guides readers on an enthralling journey through the intricate interplay of themes, styles, tropes, and sociohistorical contexts. This monograph breathes life into an array of mesmerizing texts authored by luminaries including Wajdi Mouawad, Khaled Osman, Rawi Hage, Denis Villeneuve, and Soha Béchara whose literary roots span Lebanon and Switzerland. Through meticulous analysis and thoughtful reflection, this work unveils the profound resonance of these writers' voices across borders and cultures.

Representation of the Banlieusard in Literature, Cinema, and Performances: Francephobia explores the complex identity of the banlieusard within French society through literature, film and pop culture, such as rap music and stand-up comedy. The banlieue, known in English as the “inner city,” is home to underrepresented and marginalized descendants of North- and West- African immigrants as well as some white European immigrants or white French individuals. Established in tall housing estates located on the wider outskirts of Paris, the banlieue is a space constructed through the systemic disenfranchisement of working-class people across genders, ethnicities, and race and through associations with crime, unemployment, poverty, etc. In face of these challenges, the banlieusard(e) attempts to claim their Frenchness but finds oneself trapped by society’s negative perception. Similarly, they are also physically trapped in their space of high-rise buildings and in a social/economic sphere with preconceived beliefs making it difficult to integrate and contribute to French society. This book aims to emphasize resistance and the agency of the banlieusard(e) rather than pointing out their marginalization by society’s preconceptions. Therefore, the spatial arrangement of the projects where they live redefines, deconstructs, reconstructs and reverses the center/periphery dichotomy, in which the center becomes the banlieue and as a result, its outcast status is diminished. Through a varied selection of novels, films, rap and stand-up comedy, Emma Chebinou exposes the necessity in examining negative stigmas created by the institutional discourse and by space and gives a broader interpretation of the banlieue.

Artistic (Self)-Representations of Islam and Muslims: Perspectives Across France and the Maghreb is a collection of essays that explores the question of artistic representation(s)/self-representation(s) of Muslim religious and cultural identity in France, the Maghreb and in/between since the 2000s. The volume offers a plurality of feminine and masculine voices and points of view on cultural Islam (Franco-French, Franco-Maghrebi, Maghrebi), all the while addressing the impact of events like 9/11, the tragic attacks in France in 2015-2016 (Charlie Hebdo, Stade de France, Bataclan, Nice), and the Arab Spring. Taken together, the volume features a transnational and transversal set of artistic voices that are not looking for consensus, but rather invoke dissensus (Rancière) and a full range of expression. A necessary part of that full range of expression is (self)-representations: Muslims representing themselves, though this is no facile (self)-representations, as artists continue to use the properties of the imagination and performance to complexify an easy reading, reductive meaning, or oversimplified interpretation. This interdisciplinary study contributes to the fields of French and Francophone Studies, Humanities and Global/Cultural Studies such as political studies, sociology, political philosophy, literature, cinema, visual arts and media studies with a focus on broadening views on the topic of Islam and Muslim (self)-representations across disciplines.

Examines the diverse oeuvre of internationally recognised French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb.

Marginal Bodies and Precarious Lives in North Africa: Homo Expendibilis presents an examination of North African literature situated at the crossroads of literary analysis, political philosophy, and sociology. The author analyzes social categories in relation to civil and social protections and in particular, the ways in which disruptions to these protections can lead to social degeneration. The author’s analysis starts from the premise that precarious lives in North Africa have become true bodies of exception. In other words, they are deemed dangerous, expendable and unworthy of the rights and treatment accorded to full citizens. Thus, the author assesses portrayals of violence in contemporary literature as a crystallization of the existing disjunction between the socially disqualified and those who wield colonial, political, and religious power. Moreover, the author argues that in order to understand contemporary politics and the current climate of insecurity, a deeper understanding of precarity in North Africa from colonial times to the present is crucial. By affirming their right to exist, the author argues that the marginal bodies of North Africa offer unique insights into the society that marginalized them and thus, from the often inaudible and invisible periphery, they nevertheless challenge the dominant ideas of the center.

Often associated with the ‘rural’, the ‘exotic’ or the ‘folkloric’, Amazigh women’s ancestral art of weaving has not received much attention in Amazigh Studies. Drawing on primary sources, manuscripts, and printed texts, in libraries and archives, this book sheds new light on Amazigh women’s weaving practices, arguing that it was the ancestral rug designs that inspired the Amazigh alphabet Tifinagh. In doing so, the author reveals the active role women played in the process of codifying the Amazigh language. This book is of interest to scholars in Amazigh studies, women’s history, anthropology, and linguistics.