Siham Bouamer - Böcker

Focusing on representations of women’s experiences in contemporary France, ‘Taking Up Space’ examines how women inhabit a variety of work spaces. It also speaks to the importance of cultural productions in calling out labour issues affecting women, as well as in offering a platform that allows us to imagine a future where inclusive and equitable work spaces are the norm. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s phenomenological use of objects, the book explores women’s experiences through different metaphors of the door related to labour. The contributors demonstrate how doors are not only closed or open, but also serve as a threshold. Taken together, the chapters convey how women’s work experiences can range from states of oppression to survival and celebration, and demonstrates how through deliberate stances and actions, various work spaces can become sites of liberation and revolution.

In this first edited collection in English on Abdellah Taïa, Denis M. Provencher and Siham Bouamer frame the distinctiveness of the Moroccan author’s migration by considering current scholarship in French and Francophone studies, post-colonial studies, affect theory, queer theory, and language and sexuality. In contrast to critics that consider Taïa to immigrate and integrate successfully to France as a writer and intellectual, Provencher and Bouamer argue that the author’s writing is replete with elements of constant migration, “comings and goings,” cruel optimism, flexible accumulation of language over borders, transnational filiations, and new forms of belonging and memory making across time and space. At the same time, his constantly evolving identity emerges in many non-places, defined as liminal and border narrative spaces where unexpected and transgressive new forms of belonging emerge without completely shedding shame, mourning, or melancholy.

Pierre Nora’s concept “lieux de mémoire” (realms of memory) has become arguably the most significant academic point of reference when discussing processes of nation-building and their interconnectedness with history and collective memory. Although his theory has acquired popularity well beyond its application to the French context, his influential seven-volume series (1984-92) is not without its own shortcomings and failures, which have only occasionally been exposed over the last two decades. It is not until the recent publication of Postcolonial Realms of Memory (Liverpool University Press, 2020) that we see an expansive critique of Nora’s own selective memory. Our project seeks to continue challenging Nora’s approach and France’s national narrative by providing space to examine queer lives, cultures and memories. We contend however that those related to queer experiences within France’s collective memory have almost never been addressed. Queer Realms of Memory is the first book-length study to question Nora’s lack of engagement with queer French and Francophone cultures and histories.

Pierre Nora’s concept “lieux de mémoire” (realms of memory) has become arguably the most significant academic point of reference when discussing processes of nation-building and their interconnectedness with history and collective memory. Although his theory has acquired popularity well beyond its application to the French context, his influential seven-volume series (1984-92) is not without its own shortcomings and failures, which have only occasionally been exposed over the last two decades. It is not until the recent publication of Postcolonial Realms of Memory (Liverpool University Press, 2020) that we see an expansive critique of Nora’s own selective memory. Our project seeks to continue challenging Nora’s approach and France’s national narrative by providing space to examine queer lives, cultures and memories. We contend however that those related to queer experiences within France’s collective memory have almost never been addressed. Queer Realms of Memory is the first book-length study to question Nora’s lack of engagement with queer French and Francophone cultures and histories.

This edited volume presents new and original approaches to teaching the French foreign-language curriculum, reconceptualizing the French classroom through a more inclusive lens.