1st Edition
Women and Resistance in the Maghreb Remembering Kahina
This book studies women’s resistance in the three countries of the Maghreb, concentrating on two questions: First, what has been the role of women artists since the 1960s in unlocking traditions and emancipating women on their own terms? Second, why have Maghrebi women rarely been given the right to be heard since Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia gained national independence?
Honouring the artistic voices of women that have been largely eclipsed from both popular culture and political discourse in the Maghreb, the work specifically examines resistance by women since 1960s in the Maghreb through cinema, politics, and the arts. In an ancillary way, the volume addresses a wide range of questions that are specific to Maghrebi women related to upbringing, sexuality, marriage, education, representation, exclusion, and historical memory. These issues, in their broadest dimensions, opened the gates to responses in different fields in both the humanities and the social sciences. The research presents scholarship by not only leading scholars in Francophone studies, cultural history, and specialists in women studies, but also some of the most important film critics and practicing feminist advocates.
The variety of periods and disciplines in this collection allow for a coherent and general understanding of Maghrebi societies since decolonization. The volume is a key resource to students and scholars interested in women’s studies, the Maghreb, and Middle East studies.
Introduction Nabil Boudraa and Joseph Krause
Part I: Women and Political Transformations in the Maghreb
1. Tunisian Women Transform the Public Sphere: Cultural Identity and the State Laura Rice and Karim Hamdy
2. Keid El-Nisai (Women’s Cunning): Feminist Deployment of a Patriarchal Trope Angelica DeAngelis
3. The Construction of North Africa: The Role of Berber Women Fatima Sadiqi
4. Women’s Resistance and Gender Relations in Post-Arab Spring North Africa Moha Ennaji
5. Forbidden Histories: Gender, Memory, and Reconciliation in Leila Kilani’s Nos Lieux Interdits Patricia Goldsworthy
Part II: Women’s Resistance and Literary, Cinematic, and Artistic Expressions
6. Female Tricksters in Mihăileanu’s La Source des Femmes and Kassari’s L’Enfant endormi Christa Jones
7. Grieving Mothers and Vengeful Gods: Djamila Sahraoui’s Yema and the Rebuilding of Modern Algeria Rima Abunasser
8. "Look Who’s Laughing Now": A Comparative Study of Maghrebi Women Cartoonists Diya Abdo and Maria Bobroff
9. Denouncing State Complicity in Prostitution: Activism and Resistance in Nabil Ayouch’s Film Much Loved (2015) and Laila Lalami’s Novel Secret Son (2009) Roxana Cazan
10. Algerian Women Filmmakers and their Resistance to Islamic Fundamentalism: Seven Landmark Films on the Struggle of women in the 1990s Ahmed Bedjaoui
Biography
Nabil Boudraa is a Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Oregon State University. Nabil has published several books and articles on various topics, including Kateb Yacine, Algerian cinema, Berber oral tradition, Albert Camus, the language issue in the Maghreb, and poetry, among other themes.
Joseph Ohmann Krause is a Professor Emeritus of French at Oregon State University. Co-editor of the journal Pacifica: Poetry International, he is the author of nine collections of poetry and the recipient, with Nabil Boudraa,of major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support teaching and scholarship on North Africa. His photography and poetry have been the objects of several exhibits.
