Lucy McNeece

Exile as Allegory : Marguerite Duras « Le Vice-consul »

Rivista Di Letterature Moderne E Comparate, 1990

A Moveable Feast: "Food as a Cultural Signifier

The American University of Beirut and its entire community were treated to an extraordinary feast... more The American University of Beirut and its entire community were treated to an extraordinary feast on the occasion of the recent interdisciplinary conference "Insatiable Appetite: Food as a Cultural Signifier" held at AUB on May 12-14, 2016. The conference was a project of the Arab German Young Academy (AGYA) working group "Common Heritage and Common Challenges" in cooperation with the AUB and German Orient Institut. It was organized by Kirill Dmitriev (University of St Andrews), Julia Hauser (University of Kassel), and Bilal Orfali (American University of Beirut). The conference brought together researchers from several countries working in a variety of fields, such as Literature, Sociology, Psychology, History, Philosophy and Religious studies.

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5 Rescripting Modernity: Abdelkébir Khatibi and the Archaeology of Signs

Maghrebian Mosaic

“La Langue Brisée: Identity and Difference in de Beauvoir’s La Femme rompue”

Simone de Beauvoir Studies, 1989

... that are the cause of her demise. Like Lucifer after his expulsion from paradise, the narrato... more

La lettre envolée: l'image écrite dans le cinéma tunisien

Borgès as Megistus: Hermetic Shadows in an Enlightened Mirror

Th e Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borgès occupies a unique position in the world of letters, as ... more Th e Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borgès occupies a unique position in the world of letters, as much as that very idea would be an anathema to him. He belongs in some ways to the generation of the Latin American "boom" writers, whose fi ction is oft en described as that of "magical realism," but his work diverges from theirs in its theoretical implications. For a long time he was considered quintessentially "modernist," but is now also cited as a "postmodernist." Borgès' work exhibits characteristics of all of these, but in fact, Borgès resists our attempts to classify him and has proved to be a writer of multiple times and spaces. Borgès' writing in fact revives a complex literary and cultural heritage, and even as it may suggest other arts, such as the weaving of a vast tapestry, or the creation of an elaborate musical score, or even the techtonics of avant-garde architecture, his writing may fi nd its best analogies in modern physics. Borgès is praised for his erudition and his irony, admired for his arcane storytelling, his irony and playfulness, but he is considered a bizarre writer who lived in his own world, a solipsistic, hermetic world of signs and symbols, removed from history and modern realities. Of course Borgès assisted in the creation of his various personas, donning masks which allowed him to live many lives at once, a strategy which ironically attracted more attention to the act of authorship than he claimed to seek. But perhaps we as readers have been presumptuous in our desire to establish fi rm reference points from which to understand his literary enterprise: as his fables have told us so oft en, there are no stable beginnings or endings, and all limits are also windows upon other worlds. Indeed, perhaps the very undecidability of meaning, so prevalent in Borgès' texts, the spirit of endless transcoding, akin to "infi nite semiosis" in which meaning remains in constant suspension or deferral, can make us feel less guilty, less heretical, in reading Borgès in ways that he may not have himself intended.

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The Uses of Improvisation: Drama in the Foreign Language Classroom

French Review, 1983

THE ROLE OF DRAMA IN RELATION TO THE ACADEMIC CURRICULUM has changed radically over the past twen... more THE ROLE OF DRAMA IN RELATION TO THE ACADEMIC CURRICULUM has changed radically over the past twenty-five years. Traditionally, it served as an extra-curricular activity whose emphasis was on performance, having only limited relevance to the rest of the curriculum. Theater groups from abroad were invited to perform plays for foreign language students, but primarily as examples of a narrow concept of cultural excellence. If, by chance, drama were included in the curriculum, it was studied for its literary merit or to teach students principles of dramatic form or cultural values from a historical perspective. Only quite recently has drama entered the classroom as a tool for learning, as technique rather than subject matter; this minor revolution has special importance for the teaching of foreign languages and culture. The increasing use of drama in the classroom has resulted from separate but mutually relevant developments in the fields of education, psychology, sociology, and, as we s...

Abdelkébir Khatibi

Despite the considerable acclaim that Khatibi’s work has received, critics are frequently challen... more Despite the considerable acclaim that Khatibi’s work has received, critics are frequently challenged to describe it. It is often considered « hybrid, » because it cannot be contained by the genres and categories of thought that we associate with Literature. I will argue that Khatibi’s work is less hybrid than « hermetic, » and that the difficulty felt in classifying or even analyzing his writing, is due to the presence of echoes and traces of archaic traditions. Khatibi devoted years of his life to studying other cultures as well as his own, finding that it was a rich fabric of varied influences, just as he found that other cultures bear material traces of many buried encounters. The influences present in Khatibi’s writing include Sufism, the traditions of Asia, such as the Tao and the Vedas, but also the esoteric sciences originating in Mesopotamia and Egypt that found their way to Greece, and which were revised and translated by Arabs and Eastern Christians. These entered into Eur...

Individualism: The Cultural Logic of Modernity

... in Dialectic of Enlightenment Tom McCall 14 The Rise and Decline of the Individual in Adorno:... more

Transfigurations of the Maghreb: Feminism, Decolonization, and Literature by Winnifred Woodhull

L'Esprit Créateur

Abdelwahab Meddeb: La présence de l’absent

Expressions maghrébines, 2016

Negative prints: Marguerite Duras' La femme du Gange

Lit Literature Interpretation Theory, 1991

La lettre envolée: l'image écrite dans le cinéma tunisien

Cinemaction, 2004

The State of the Straits

Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, 2007

Borgès as Megistus: Hermetic Shadows in an Enlightened Mirror

Canadian Review of Comparative Literature Revue Canadienne De Litterature Comparee, Jun 29, 2011

Th e Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borgès occupies a unique position in the world of letters, as ... more Th e Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borgès occupies a unique position in the world of letters, as much as that very idea would be an anathema to him. He belongs in some ways to the generation of the Latin American "boom" writers, whose fi ction is oft en described as that of "magical realism," but his work diverges from theirs in its theoretical implications. For a long time he was considered quintessentially "modernist," but is now also cited as a "postmodernist." Borgès' work exhibits characteristics of all of these, but in fact, Borgès resists our attempts to classify him and has proved to be a writer of multiple times and spaces. Borgès' writing in fact revives a complex literary and cultural heritage, and even as it may suggest other arts, such as the weaving of a vast tapestry, or the creation of an elaborate musical score, or even the techtonics of avant-garde architecture, his writing may fi nd its best analogies in modern physics. Borgès is praised for his erudition and his irony, admired for his arcane storytelling, his irony and playfulness, but he is considered a bizarre writer who lived in his own world, a solipsistic, hermetic world of signs and symbols, removed from history and modern realities. Of course Borgès assisted in the creation of his various personas, donning masks which allowed him to live many lives at once, a strategy which ironically attracted more attention to the act of authorship than he claimed to seek. But perhaps we as readers have been presumptuous in our desire to establish fi rm reference points from which to understand his literary enterprise: as his fables have told us so oft en, there are no stable beginnings or endings, and all limits are also windows upon other worlds. Indeed, perhaps the very undecidability of meaning, so prevalent in Borgès' texts, the spirit of endless transcoding, akin to "infi nite semiosis" in which meaning remains in constant suspension or deferral, can make us feel less guilty, less heretical, in reading Borgès in ways that he may not have himself intended.

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Decolonizing the Sign: Language and Identity in Abdelkebir Khatibi's La Memoire tatouee

Yale French Studies, 1993

Yale University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Yale... more Yale University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Yale French Studies. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Heterographies: Postmodernism and the Crisis of the Sacred in Maghreb Literature

The Comparatist, 1995

The Reader in the Field of Rye: Marguerite Duras' "L'amour

Modern Language Studies, 1992

Individualism: the cultural logic of modernity

... in Dialectic of Enlightenment Tom McCall 14 The Rise and Decline of the Individual in Adorno:... more

Théâtre noir francophone

Oeuvres et …, 2001

I. L'Afrique: les critiques français et le théâtre africain francophone: 1916-1999. Du Palai... more

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