University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2018 CULTURAL HERITAGE SUPERIMPOSITION IN THE NOVELS OF EMMANUEL ROBLES AND MAïSSA BEY (20th AND 21st CENTURY) Lavinia Adina Horner University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Horner, Lavinia Adina, "CULTURAL HERITAGE SUPERIMPOSITION IN THE NOVELS OF EMMANUEL ROBLES AND MAïSSA BEY (20th AND 21st CENTURY). " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2018. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4906 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Lavinia Adina Horner entitled "CULTURAL HERITAGE SUPERIMPOSITION IN THE NOVELS OF EMMANUEL ROBLES AND MAïSSA BEY (20th AND 21st CENTURY)." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Modern Foreign Languages. John B. Romeiser, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Rudyard J. Alcocer, Derek H. Alderman, Nuria Cruz Camara Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) CULTURAL HERITAGE SUPERIMPOSITION IN THE NOVELS OF EMMANUEL ROBLES AND MAïSSA BEY (20th AND 21st CENTURY) A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Lavinia Adina Horner May 2018 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” I would like to thank Professor John Romeiser who guided me from the first day I joined the French and Francophone Studies program at The University of Tennessee. He always had a smile on his face and encouraging words. As I was finishing my dissertation, I felt slightly overwhelmed by the amount of work that had to be done. One day, I worked almost non-stop from 8 AM to 3 PM. When I emailed him the finished product, he said: “Excellent, bravo, quel tour de force! It ‘ain’t’ a Ph.D. for nothing!” Needless to say, I needed a good laugh and his words brightened my day. Thank you for everything! Even though she is not part of my committee now, I would like to thank Professor Douja Mamelouk who introduced me to Francophone literature and was my biggest fan throughout the years. I can never thank you enough! Professor Corbin Treacy, thank you for having accepted to join our UTK team during this process! I appreciate your advice, patience and your response to my (very) many emails! I would also like to thank Professor Alderman who allowed me to audit one of his Geography classes. His class discussions helped me a lot with my research and I also had the chance to meet his wonderful students who shared information about their own research – thank you, Jordan Brasher! Professor Alcocer, thank you for always being excited about my work and for encouraging me! I enjoyed meeting with you during the first stage of my dissertation project and I appreciate all the good advice I received. Professor Cruz-Camara, thank you for being an amazing Director of Graduate Studies, we are all grateful for everything you do to make our lives easier! Thank you for being part of my committee and for the advice you offered during my prospectus defense and during our initial meeting! I don’t even know how to thank my family for all of their help, patience and love, so I will only say THANK YOU! iii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the novels of Emmanuel Roblès (1914-1995) with a focus on Jeunes saisons and Saison violente and those of Maïssa Bey (1950-present) with an emphasis on Pierre Sang Papier ou Cendre and Bleu blanc vert. My dissertation builds on science and literature to analyze forms of cultural heritage in colonial and postcolonial Algeria. By examining the literary works of Roblès and Bey, I demonstrate that they explore cultural heritage through the lenses of superimposition – a common technique in medicine where new images are placed over an existing image to detect changes. I argue that the superimposition method employed by Roblès and Bey allows for new images of cultural heritage created by child-like narratives to be placed over monolithic images promoted by adult-like narratives. Thus, this superimposition technique complicates oversimplified images of cultural heritage. When addressing cultural heritage, I focus on language, customs and architecture since language allows for customs to be transmitted from generation to generation, and, in turn, customs are influenced by the landscape of a country. While previous scholarly work has studied the topic of cultural heritage in the novels of Bey and Roblès, it has not explored the superimposition method that both authors employ to address the controversy of cultural heritage in Algeria. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................1 CHAPTER I: ALGERIA AND IMAGES OF CULTURAL HERITAGE 1.1 Colonial Algeria ......................................................................................17 1.2 Postcolonial Algeria ................................................................................ 36 1.3 Cultural Heritage: On Stage and Behind the Scenes .............................. 58 CHAPTER II: EMMANUEL ROBLÈS 2.1 Architecture ............................................................................................. 77 2.2 Customs ................................................................................................... 97 2.3 Language ................................................................................................. 116 CHAPTER III: MAÏSSA BEY 3.1 Architecture ............................................................................................. 140 3.2 Customs ................................................................................................... 163 3.3 Language ................................................................................................. 185 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 208 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 214 VITA .............................................................................................................. 226 1 INTRODUCTION “Where children are, there is the golden age” - Novalis Political ideologies and related notions are loaded concepts requiring explanations in order to be better understood. Racism, heritage, immigration, nationalism, socialism or anarchism - just to name a few - are difficult to define neatly and usually trigger controversy given their complexity and diverse connotations. In his Le racisme expliqué à ma fille1, Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun attempts to clarify such concepts as heritage, slavery, genocide, racism, and anti-Semitism for his ten-year-old daughter. Ben Jelloun has answers, and the child asks questions that will provide clarification and a better understanding of the above-mentioned terms. The words “Explained to My Daughter” present in the title of the book reveal the fact that the adult explains while the child listens to the explanations offered by her father. Following Ben Jelloun’s example, some narratives portray children as the recipients of such explanations, especially when important political concerns are at stake. However, at times, the voices of children release a counter-narrative that questions and renegotiates the adult narrative, allowing for nuances and different perspectives to be added to a story. In his novel, Le Petit Prince2, French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry focused on the importance of empowering the voices of children by narrating the story of a pilot stranded in the desert and a young boy fallen to earth from an asteroid. The pilot has chosen his career after an unsuccessful attempt, as a child, to convey meaning through his drawings to adults: “Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c’est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications” (Adults never 1 Racism explained to my daughter 2 The Little Prince 2 understand anything on their own, and it is exhausting for children to constantly offer them explanations). (2) Saint-Exupéry presents us with a fresh perspective in which children are endowed with agency and the ability to explain the world to adults. The writer suggests that the eyes of children have the ability to perceive certain nuances and details that might escape the eyes of the adults; consequently, their perspectives on the world are needed too in order to promote diversity and enrich narratives. From other examples, we can deduce that the voices of children explain experiences, even war-related ones, with a simplicity that can shock the audience: My father died back in Algeria. France killed him. And my mother died in Sakiet- Sidi-Youssef. She died along with my sister. Before, when we were in the West, France came to beat us, burning