(Re)-conciliation?

In recent years many works of Francophone literature, especially written by second-generation immigrants —such as Alice Zeniter or Faïza Guène to cite a few— highlight the many fractures encountered in the postcolonial francophone world, testifying to the difficult experiences of the “double culture.” Throughout this conference, we will examine the question of (re)conciliation, notably through a postcolonial lens, echoing the complexity of the French-speaking world and its history, its diversity and richness, and considering the (im)possibilities of (re)conciliation in the face of colonial history and the current political context. Can you truly reconcile with France? How can we work from and within this divide?

10 AM - 11 AM: Memory and Media

Kathy Fang (Stanford University): Breaking News: Remediation and the “Reel” in Pontecorvo’s Bataille d’Alger

Jihad Azahrai (Columbia University): Our wounds have not healed yet: Memory, Resistance, and the Olympic Spectacle.

Renate Mattar (Columbia University): The dehumanization of Arabs in French medias in 2024.

11:45 AM - 12:30 PM: Gender, Sexuality and Reconciliation

Atim Mackin (Harvard) : Reconciling with forgotten sexualities through literature: De purs hommes and the Senegalese case

Song Huang (University of Virginia): Réconciliation au Féminin : La Queerness comme Force de Résilience dans "La Joueuse de Go" et "Le Détachement féminin rouge"

1:45 PM - 3:00 PM: Reconciling through Creative Fictions

Selma Laghmara (Harvard): The Cannibalist (Re)conciliation of Dib’s "Désert sans détour”

Hanna Bechiche (Cambridge University): The creative impulse of death: Moze's vocal resurrection as resistance against testimonial injustice

Siham Amraoui (CUNY Graduate Center): Réconciliation avec le futur ? 2084 : la fin du monde de Boualem Sansal

Lina Scally (UC Berkeley): Le pouvoir réconciliateur de l'Art: Dépasser les frontières dans la BD Le Piano Oriental de Zeina Abirached

3:45 PM - 4:45 PM: Politics of Space

Joel-Anthoney Boussous (Duke University): Dead or Dying: The Politics of Erasure & Preservation

Alejandro Gerena-Ortiz (NYU): Making sense of the French Antilles: From Emancipation to Departmentalization

Dalil Ferguenis (NYU): Decolonization, reconciliation ? The era of decolonizations from Parisian banlieue’s shantytowns : Argenteuil from the Algerian war to the birth of the « immigrant question » (1954-1973)

Participants:

Kathy Fang is a PhD student in Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University. Her academic research is interested in Francophone postcolonialities, Asian/American diasporic traditions, media and technology, and translation studies.

Jihad Azahrai is a first-year PhD student in the French Department at Columbia University. She examines intergenerational frameworks through lenses of Postcolonial Studies, (Post)Memory Studies, Gender Studies, Multilingualism and Translation Studies.

Atim Mackin is PhD student in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. He focuses on the historiography of sexual and gender minorities in Francophone Africa, and also examines the aesthetics of excess in two African American cultures: the ballroom scene and hip hop.

Siham Amroui, is a third-year Ph.D. student at the Graduate Center (CUNY). Her research focuses on francophone and arabophone literature, especially dystopian narratives.

Song Huang is a first-year doctoral student at the University of Virginia. Her PhD research focuses on ballet performances in China, examining how these works use a Western artistic language to convey Chinese cultural values and perspectives.

Hanna Bechiche is a French-Algerian MPhil student at the University of Cambridge. Her research examines the poetics and politics of voice in Francophone North African writing. She also works as a journalist focusing on Algerian history and decolonial theory.

Selma Laghmara is a first-year PhD student in French literature at Harvard University’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. She earned a BA in Political Humanities and an MA in Political Theory from Sciences Po Paris (2024), and an MA in Literature, Arts, and Humanities at Paris Diderot.

Joel-Anthoney Bossous is a Graduate student at Duke University and a proud New Yorker. His intellectual interests are many but primarily include Political Philosophy and legal theory, Political Behavior, and Epistemology. By pursuing a JD-PhD in Political Science he has hopes of growing as a leader, future educator, activist, and scholar.

Dalil Ferguenis is a second year Ph. D student in History and French studies at NYU. Coming from a Franco-Algerian family, he grew up in the Parisian banlieue. His work was awarded the 2023 Prix Maitron for best M. A in History. For his dissertation, he will tackle the history of post-colonial radical activism between France and the Arab world, through a study of the Mouvement des Travailleurs Arabes.

Alejandro Gerena-Ortiz was born and raised in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Currently, he is a PhD student in both French Studies and History and is also part of the Public Humanities Initiative at NYU. For his PhD he is working on a cross comparison between projects of neo-imperialism in Puerto Rico, Martinique and Guadeloupe after World War II, in an effort to bridge histories divided by notions of language and nation.

Renate Mattar is a second year Ph.D. student at Columbia University. Her interests include memory studies, the Middle East, post-colonial studies, Gender studies.

Organizers:

Renate Mattar, Jianna Walker, Juliette Goutierre, members of the French Graduate Student Association (FGSA).

Visual: Frantz Fanon Mural in Venissieux ©Bruce Clarke

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Maison Française, 515 West 116th Street, New York, United States