Lines Re-drawn: Envisioning Feminism and Islam in Francophone Fiction (1980-2019)
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Date
2024-01-10
Authors
Youssefzadeh, Kiana
Journal Title
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
What does it mean for a woman in or from an Islamic space to be liberated? My dissertation examines the works of five Francophone authors from Iran and Algeria—Marjane Satrapi, Négar Djavadi, Délphine Minoui, Assia Djebar, Swann Meralli—who question the invisibility or misrepresentation of women in national histories of Iranian and Algerian revolutions. These writers shed light on women’s perspectives on revolution and on the violence in which they participated and to which they were subjected. Official narratives by Iranian and Algerian governments and media about their respective national revolutions have underreported the role of women who fought for their countries. In addition, France’s relationship to Iran and Algeria, its politics of “laïcité,” and its policing of the Islamic veil have created additional challenges these Francophone authors expose.Each of the author reckons with French stereotypes regarding an alleged “backward oppressive Islam” that dominate public discourse and do not make space for nuances and alternatives. At the same time, they address their own respective countries’ lack of representation of women in their national histories. Their writing creates a space for a diversity of women, thus opening a discussion on what it means to be an Iranian/Algerian woman refusing to reduce identities to the meaning modern France seeks to impose on the Muslim veil. Decolonial feminism inspires my project as I address how islamophobia and violence impact francophone Muslims in France and the enduring legacy of France’s colonial past that crafted xenophobic, orientalist narratives about the “Eastern Other.” The Francophone Iranian and Algerian writers in my corpus work to dismantle the separation between constructions of gender, race, and religion. In creative and intersectional ways, they are rethinking womanhood under Islam, explicitly or implicitly, and its representation both in France and in their respective countries. My project analyzes representative works and various genres, including graphic novels, to showcase these authors’ audacity in writing their own narratives in the face of misrepresentations and erasure.