Cajsa Zerhouni (GU), new doctoral student in French literature, will present her doctoral thesis project. All interested are welcome!
Given the recurring representations of the sonic and paralingual sphere, and the pure auditory experience of Arabic or French voices in the autobiographical writing of Assia Djebar and Leila Sebbar, my project bears on the place and implications of sound in the bilingual, postcolonial context.
Seemingly conveying the inclination towards an original and essential identity, symbolized by the nostalgia of the female Arabic voice, as well as indicating an ambivalence in relation to both languages, the resonance of the non-semantic voice in these texts foremost seems a strategy to move beyond conflicting linguistic identities.
By ways of dislocation of language, the bounderies separating one language from the other seem to be ultimately smudged, allowing for the construction of a hybrid subjectivity (Bhabha) within the Francophone literary text.