at the crossroad |
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At the south-western frontier of the Mediterranean world, and at the crossroad of my Romance and Orientalist interests, Maghrebian studies deserve a special treatment as a specific sub-discipline. I came to the region by the more conspicuous way, that of Francophone literature, yet what captivated me was the less patent cultural complexity: of the Arab-Berber dualism, of the Saharan limes of the Mediterranean, of blet al-makhzen and blet as-siba, Even more than Lusophone Africa, the Maghreb became my favourite field of comparativist exploitation, but also a reality worth studying for its own sake.
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my maghrebian writings
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“Le ruban de Möbius. Pour un modèle topologique de la continuité créatrice dans le monde méditerranéen” [“The Möbius strip. Towards a topological model of creative continuity in the Mediterranean world”], Prace Komisji Neofilologicznej Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności, vol. XIV, 2016, p. 71-81. ISSN 1731-8491
The article deals with the problem of creative continuity in the Mediterranean region, often seen rather as the discontinuous space of the Huntingtonian “clash of civilizations”. As counter-examples of such a vision, numerous writers who deliberately sought for a double, oscillating identity are mentioned: Driss Chraïbi, Edmond Amran El Maleh, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Juan Goytisolo, Abdelwahab Meddeb. The main aim of this essay is to propose a “geometrical” way of conceptualizing the paradoxical character of the Mediterranean continuity, using the topological model of the Möbius strip, previously brought into the domain of humanities by Slavoj Žižek, together with other tools created in the context of post-modern philosophy and cultural criticism, such as the Derridean notion of khōra.
"Asgudi i taskla: przejście od oralności do pisma i nowa literatura w poszukiwaniach tożsamości marokańskich Berberów" ["Asgudi and Taskla. The transition from orality to literacy and the emergent literature in the search for Amazigh identity in Morocco"], Przegląd orientalistyczny, nr 1-2/2014, p. 89-98. ISSN 0033-2283
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“Désert: une métaphore absolue de J.M.G. Le Clézio. Entre l'exotisme et l'écriture de la solidarité” [“Desert: an absolute metaphor of J.M.G. Le Clézio. Between exoticism and solidarity writing”], Le Maroc dans l'oeuvre de J.M.G. Le Clézio, Claude Cavallero et Ijjou Cheikh Moussa (eds.), Rabat, Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Rabat, 2014, p. 115-125; [Série: Colloques et Séminaires, n°177].
"Is there Tunisian literature? Emergent writing and fractal proliferation of minor voices", Colloquia Humanistica, nr 2/2013, p. 79-93. ISSN 2081-6774
The article presents the Tunisian literature from the non-local perspective of global literary market and the circulation of translated literature. The minor status of the studied phenomenon becomes obvious even when the Tunisian literature is compared with the Moroccan one. What is more, this comparison helps to understand the consequences of some choices made by the Tunisian writers, choices that established diverging directions of literary quest and the ambivalent aspiration of belonging both to the Arabic and the French linguistic and cultural zone. This basic ambivalence is treated in the article as essential fissure and a kind of fractal principle, conducing to the proliferation of minor voices, instead of synergistic pattern of development leading to the synthesis of cultural contradictions. Some of these voices, such as Abdelwahab Meddeb, try to inscribe themselves in the universalist, gallicized context, while others, such as the emigrant Arab-speaking writer Hassouna Mosbahi, find in the translation a chance of reaching new readers and the promise of escaping the status of minor or emergent writers. ![]()
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(Il)legibility of Morocco
A BOOK PROJECT
This research project leads to a book characterizing the recent developments of the Moroccan literature, marked by linguistic divergence. The idea appeared as a consequence of a research realized in Casablanca and Rabat in March/April 2013. The materials brought from the book fair at that occasion form a first "pack" that will be contrasted with another lease in two or three years in order to produce a publication that might conjugate novelty and insight into the becoming of the country and its reputed literary market.
This research project leads to a book characterizing the recent developments of the Moroccan literature, marked by linguistic divergence. The idea appeared as a consequence of a research realized in Casablanca and Rabat in March/April 2013. The materials brought from the book fair at that occasion form a first "pack" that will be contrasted with another lease in two or three years in order to produce a publication that might conjugate novelty and insight into the becoming of the country and its reputed literary market.
A LIMITED VISIBILITY
My contribution to the Mediterranean studies obviously takes for the starting point my competence as a Romanist. It is thus a vision filtrated through French. Nonetheless what attracts me in this area is exactly its complexity and irreducibility to the domain of a single language and culture, its diagrammatic character - the necessity of considering this cultural reality as a complex diagram of connections.
A single key must do, together with a category of translucent that I treat as a specific esthetic concept. A French text written by a Maghrebian author - or intellectual, because essays interest me more than novels in this context - is in fact supported by a complex "plumbing" of concepts, conditions of their translatability and intranslatability, their presence and significant absence on the surface. The interplay of these elements builds the dimension of emergence - a completely new level of complexity that interests me so vividly. In these terms I read, as I just mentioned, first of all the intellectuals: Laâbi, Meddeb, Benzine, in fact any I can put my hands on. The transparencies of their French formation and persuasions show me novel intellectual landscapes, going very far beyond anything that we could actually call "French", deconstructing the very sense of Europeanness and enriching it in new meanings coming from the peripheries, in what I once called intrusive spirit of the Desert.
My contribution to the Mediterranean studies obviously takes for the starting point my competence as a Romanist. It is thus a vision filtrated through French. Nonetheless what attracts me in this area is exactly its complexity and irreducibility to the domain of a single language and culture, its diagrammatic character - the necessity of considering this cultural reality as a complex diagram of connections.
A single key must do, together with a category of translucent that I treat as a specific esthetic concept. A French text written by a Maghrebian author - or intellectual, because essays interest me more than novels in this context - is in fact supported by a complex "plumbing" of concepts, conditions of their translatability and intranslatability, their presence and significant absence on the surface. The interplay of these elements builds the dimension of emergence - a completely new level of complexity that interests me so vividly. In these terms I read, as I just mentioned, first of all the intellectuals: Laâbi, Meddeb, Benzine, in fact any I can put my hands on. The transparencies of their French formation and persuasions show me novel intellectual landscapes, going very far beyond anything that we could actually call "French", deconstructing the very sense of Europeanness and enriching it in new meanings coming from the peripheries, in what I once called intrusive spirit of the Desert.