20th Annual Student Research Conference
Language & Literature
Engaging Historical Narrative in Assia Djebar’s Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade
Eric M. Baumbach
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
The stories of women in colonial Algeria woven together by Assia Djebar in her novel Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade (1985) present colonization as a complex act of sexual aggression. Djebar engages the formation of history and war by comparing written official documentation, oral history, and the author's own personal narrative. Through the descriptions of the daily trials of Algerian women, the novel illuminates the intersections of personal narrative and state history. By retracing these patterns of women's subjugation among both the French and Islamic cultures of Algeria, Djebar equates gender-based oppression with the colonization of her native land. This paper will highlight the ways in which Djebar not only sheds light on the untold stories of Algerian women, but demonstrates the malleability of a marginalizing, socially constructed nationalist history.
Keywords: Algeria, French Colonies, Africa, Post-Colonialism, Feminism
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 59-4
Location: VH 1428
Time: 3:30 pm