This course focuses on developing skills of close reading and literary analysis, both in class discussion and in assignments, through the study of major black writers. This section will be a study of global black literature—novels, drama, and poetry—written in English from the twentieth century to the present. We will consider how major aut…[Read more]

Selected works from the literatures of former European colonies: African, Indian, Caribbean, Australian, Canadian, Latin American, etc. Colonialism waned in the 1940s through 60s amidst decolonization movements, yet globalization flourished in often unnoticed, hegemonic pathways. Considering cultural products of this moment leads us to ask what…[Read more]

Selected works from the literatures of former European colonies: African, Indian, Caribbean, Australian, Canadian, Latin American, etc. Colonialism waned in the 1940s through 60s amidst decolonization movements, yet globalization flourished in often unnoticed, hegemonic pathways. Considering cultural products of this moment leads us to ask what…[Read more]

This article focuses on the limits of liberal discourses such as multiculturalism in an increasing global world. I focus on multicultural London and juxtapose Black British writer, Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth to Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things, to underline the multiple intersections between the status of colored immigrants, their des…[Read more]

This article focuses on the limits of liberal discourses such as multiculturalism in an increasing global world. I focus on multicultural London and juxtapose Black British writer, Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth to Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things, to underline the multiple intersections between the status of colored immigrants, their des…[Read more]

Amine’s essay explores memory-making and highlights a paradox in
Leı¨la Sebbar’s The Seine was Red, a novel that describes the conflicting memories of the police massacre of Algerians in Paris on 17 October 1961. Structured as a family album with captioned identities, place, and time, Sebbar’s novel employs a mode of remembrance that convent…[Read more]

This essay maps out a six-year literary transformation of Paris noir from 1957 to 1963 that overlaps with the Algerian war for independence from France (1954–1962). In this journey that transits from Parisian utopianism to postcolonial criticism, from Richard Wright and James Baldwin’s love songs to racially liberal Paris to William Gardner S…[Read more]

This essay explores the meanings and effects of postcolonial authors’ recent refashioning of classical historical fiction. That refashioning has two aims: a materialist cartography that counters the nationalist vocation of classical historical fiction by revealing the supra-national, global aspirations of colonial capitalism as a system; and an e…[Read more]

This essay explores the meanings and effects of postcolonial authors’ recent refashioning of classical historical fiction. That refashioning has two aims: a materialist cartography that counters the nationalist vocation of classical historical fiction by revealing the supra-national, global aspirations of colonial capitalism as a system; and an e…[Read more]

On many occasions cinema has chosen to shoot movies in locales other than the ones in which the events of the films are supposed to take place in. This could be due to various reasons, namely cheaper production costs, or inability to gain access to the original place. The choice of location, however, tries to provide a mirror image of the…[Read more]

n her treatise on abjection, Julia Kristeva argues that the abject is located outside the self, remaining in a state of repulsion that threatens to destroy the self. Abject representations are prevalent in the way terrorists have been portrayed in the Western news media post-September 11, 2001. These images of abjection are problematic, as they…[Read more]

Code switching is a practice exercised by multilingual speakers. Linguists define the term as the simultaneous use of more than one language. Code switching is prevalent in postcolonial countries in which the colonial language has continued to exist alongside the native language. In the past, code switching in the Arab world has been confined to…[Read more]

The changes that have been witnessed by media in the Arab world have redefined media’s initial role as a source of information. With the advent of satellite television new realities, namely the dismantling of communication boundaries, have emerged. At first, such advancements posed a challenge to government bodies, specifically in the Arab region;…[Read more]