Queer Nations: Marginal Sexualities in the MaghrebThe Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) has been inhabited for millennia by a heterogeneous populace. However, in the wake of World War II, when independence movements began to gain momentum in these French colonies, the dominant national discourses attempted to define national identities by exclusion. One rallying cry from the 1930s was "Islam is my religion, Arabic is my language, Algeria is my fatherland." In this incisive postcolonial study, Jarrod Hayes uses literary analysis to examine how Francophone novelists from the Maghreb engaged in a diametric nation-building project. Their works imagined a diverse nation peopled by those who were excluded by the dominant political discourses, especially those who did not conform to traditional sexual norms. By incorporating representations of marginal sexualities, sexual dissidence, and gender insubordination, Maghrebian novelists imagined an anticolonial struggle that would result in sexual liberation and envisioned nations that could be defined and developed inclusively. |
Contents
Part One ALLEGORIES OF READING | 21 |
Moha the Theory Machine | 50 |
Homosexuality Unveiled | 73 |
Tahar Djaouts Betrayal | 96 |
National Identity | 120 |
Mohammed Dib and the Algerian Revolution | 136 |
Kateb Yacines Nedjma | 148 |
Tahar Ben Jellouns Allegory of Gender | 165 |
Assia Djebars | 182 |
Djebars Allegory | 198 |
Leïla Sebbar | 215 |
Part Four ALLEGORIES OF | 239 |
Allegories of the Queer Nation | 262 |
Works Cited | 287 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abane Ramdane Ahmed Algerian Revolution allegory Almoravid anticolonial Arab articulate Assia Djebar associated Bhabha Boudjedra's c'est castration childhood circumcision closet colonial critics critique culture describes Dib's Djaout Djebar elite erotic Fanon female feminine feminism feminist femmes Feraoun Fouroulou French gaze gender hammam harem haunt hauntology heterosexual homoerotic homosexuality Ibn Toumert Islam Jelloun Kabyle Kateb L'amour L'enfant de sable lesbian liberation Ma al-Aynayn Maghreb Maghrebian Maghrebian literature male subjectivity marginal sexualities masculinity Memmi's mère Moha Moha's Moroccan mother Muslim Nafissa narrative narrator narrator's national identity national origins nationalist discourses Nedjma Noura novel nuit sacrée official Ombre sultane Orient Orientalist paradigm parallel Paris passage pederasty penis political postcolonial qu'il queer Queer Nations Rachid rape reading represents resistance rewriting role roots Sebbar secret sexual tourism Shérazade Sindibad stereotype struggle Tahar Tahar Ben Jelloun texts tion tout Trans Univ unveiling veil violence Western women writing yeux Zahra