“FRENCH” CULTURE by David Spieser Maîtrise
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by D-Scholarship@Pitt THE POLITICS OF AESTHETICS: NATION, REGION AND IMMIGRATION IN CONTEMPORARY “FRENCH” CULTURE by David Spieser Maîtrise, English Literature and American Civilization, Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2004 M.A., French Literature, University of Pittsburgh, 2011 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2015 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by David Spieser It was defended on May 26, 2015 and approved by Dr. Giuseppina Mecchia, Associate Professor of French, Department of French and Italian Dr. Neil Doshi, Assistant Professor of French, Department of French and Italian Dr. David Pettersen, Assistant Professor of French, Department of French and Italian Dr. Susan Andrade, Associate Professor of English, Department of English ii THE POLITICS OF AESTHETICS: NATION, REGION AND IMMIGRATION IN CONTEMPORARY “FRENCH” CULTURE David Spieser, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2015 This dissertation examines the tensions at work in contemporary French cultural politics between, on the one hand, homogenizing/assimilating hegemonic tendencies and, on the other hand, performances of heterogeneity/disharmony especially in literature but also in other artistic forms such as music. “Regional literature/culture” and “banlieue (ghetto) literature/culture” are studied as two major phenomena that performatively go against France’s “state monolingualism,” here understood as much as a “one-language policy” as the enforcement of “one discourse about Frenchness” (mono-logos). I rely on Jacques Rancière’s notions of “archipolitics” and “aesthetic regimes” to suggest that May 1968 has constituted an epistemological shift which has made it possible for alternate French discourses to emerge and become perceptible. Literatures displaying such discourses (either regional-related or immigration-related or both) are termed “accented literatures,” with “accent” being defined both as “variation from the linguistic norm” and “variation from the discursive norm.” These “accented literatures” become a distinctive trait of “democracy,” or “agonistic community,” allowing space for disharmonic representations of the “French” “nation.” Regarding regional (Alsatian) literature, I focus on André Weckmann’s literary use of magical surrealism and of a dialogic “Germanic French language”; regarding immigrant identity and banlieue literature, I first explicate the profound implications, for banlieue literature as a whole, of the “two- iii generation theory” developed by Algeria-born French rapper and writer Mounsi, with Azouz Begag’s literary production as a case study. Then turning to Abd al Malik, a French rapper/writer/filmmaker of Congolese origin, I pinpoint his concept of “pacific, new French revolution” as an ultimate form of accentuation of French discourse, scrutinizing the ways in which his art performs Frenchness as well as Islam. Because the notion of “accent” is closely linked to those of “prestige” and “legitimacy vs. lack thereof,” this dissertation eventually leads to a redefinition of “legitimate culture” in France. As a practical consequence of these literary- political debates, I advocate for the teaching, within the French public school system, of both regional languages and immigrant languages such as Arabic as a way to address identity challenges specific to the contemporary postcolonial era. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………viii 1.0 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THE “POLITICS OF AESTHETICS”? JACQUES RANCIÈRE, ANDRÉ WECKMANN AND ABD AL MALIK………………………….1 1.1 “FRENCH MONOLINGUALISM” IN QUESTION……………………………..1 1.2 JACQUES RANCIÈRE, “THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER OF AESTHETICS AND EQUALITY” ………………………………………………………….........7 1.3 “REGIMES” AND “ARCHIPOLITY”/“ARCHIPOLITICS”…………………...11 1.4 “DEMOCRACY”………………………………………………………………...16 1.5 MAY 1968 INAUGURATES A NEW, POSTCOLONIAL “HYPER- AESTHETIC” REGIME…………………………………………………………18 1.6 “DEMOCRACY” AS “POLEMICAL COMMUNITIES”……………………... 27 1.7 SCHIFFMAN’S “LINGUISTIC CULTURE” HYPOTHESIS…………………..29 2.0 CHAPTER ONE: ANDRÉ WECKMANN, A LITERARY GIANT IN RANCIÈRE’S SENSE: HIS PERSONAL AND NOVELISTIC EPOPÉE FROM LES NUITS DE FASTOV (1968) TO LA ROUE DU PAON (1988), SIMON HERTZOG (1992) AND FONSE OU L’ÉDUCATION ALSACIENNE (1975)……………………………………..42 2.1 INTRODUCTION: THE BIOGRAPHICAL ANDRÉ WECKMANN AND THE IMPORTANCE OF “POLYPHONY”…………………………………………...42 2.2 WECKMANN’S PERFORMANCE OF A DIALOGIC “GERMANIC FRENCH LANGUAGE” IN FONSE OU L’ÉDUCATION ALSACIENNE AND SIMON HERTZOG………………………………………………………………………..47 2.3 SURREALISM, “SURREALIST STYLE” OR MAGICAL REALISM IN LA ROUE DU PAON AND LES NUITS DE FASTOV? POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS…………………………………………………………………95 v 3.0 CHAPTER TWO: “LA PAROLE IMMIGRÉE” MADE VISIBLE/AUDIBLE: FRENCH- MAGHREBI AUTHORS MOUNSI AND AZOUZ BEGAG BOTH INHABIT AND RESIST THE ARCHIPOLITICS…………………………..…………………………..131 3.1 INTRODUCTION: THE PARADOX IN MOUNSI’S ANTI-ASSIMILATIONIST PROTO-RAP……………………………………………………………………131 3.2 THE “TWO-GENERATION THEORY”: FROM SUBALTERNITY TO EXPRESSION AND LITERARY EXPRESSION……………………………..136 3.3 THE POLITICS OF SELF-PORTRAITURE AS A “BANLIEUE WRITER”….150 3.4 FILM/MEDIA AS METAPHOR AND REALITY OF THE ARCHIPOLITICS………………………………………………………………161 3.5 VENTRILOQUISM AND ANTI-ARCHIPOLITICAL RESISTANCE IN AZOUZ BEGAG………………………………………………………………..174 3.6 CONCLUSION: LITERATURE VS. “ACCENTED LITERATURE,” AND LITERATURE AS “ACCENTED LANGUAGE”……………………………..185 4.0 CHAPTER THREE: “POSTCOLONIAL ISLAM” THOUGHT AND RAPPED: ABD AL MALIK’S RÉVOLUTION PACIFIQUE FROM WITHIN THE “FRENCH” “NATION”...……………………………………………………………………………188 4.1 INTRODUCTION: ABD AL MALIK’S RAP IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FRENCH “ARCHIPOLITY”…………………………………………………...188 4.2 RAP AND THE COMPLEX INTERTWINING OF RACE, VIOLENCE AND TRANSGRESSION…………………………………………………………….191 4.3 A COMPLEX CONFESSION: “ISLAM DE BANLIEUE” AND DELINQUENCY AS SIGNS OF POSTCOLONIAL DISCONTENT…………………………….201 4.4 SUFISM IN THE REPUBLIC (1): THE RETURN OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AS ABD AL MALIK’S HORIZON AND REALITY………….210 vi 4.5 SUFISM IN THE REPUBLIC (2): ABD AL MALIK’S LITERARY AND POLITICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF RANCIERIAN EQUALITY…………222 4.6 CONCLUSION: “POSTCOLONIAL ISLAM,” “REPUBLICAN RAP” AND “FAITHFULNESS TO FRANCE”……………………………………………..240 5.0 CONCLUSION: REDEFINING “LEGITIMATE CULTURE” IN FRANCE…………243 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………248 vii Acknowledgements To Harmony, my dearest daughter –your smiles, as l’Abbé Pierre would say, are cheaper than electricity but they have, much more powerfully than electricity, brightened every single day since you joined our family. Your innate joie-de-vivre and irresistible volubility kept me going no matter what. I hope I didn’t use your name too much in this dissertation! To Jessica, “My Muse” for my first Master’s Thesis already more than ten years ago, and now for this Doctoral Thesis! I love you. To my mother, Mamie Nicole, for her very regular care packages en provenance d’Alsace which always had something related to my research hidden in them. To my father, Grandpapa André, and to my brother Joël and my sister-in-law Céline, for their continuous love and support. To Gramma Jan, whose help with childcare proved to be decisive at key moments of this project. Thank you for miles traveled on the train with Clifford to come to our distant home, and thank you to Grampa Rich for indulging to have Gramma be far away for extended periods of time. To Robert Grossmann and the regretted André Weckmann, for graciously making room for interviews, in their busy schedules, respectively in July 2008 and June 2010. To New York State History Professeur Richard Ward, whose insightful gift of The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin has remained an inspiration for this project, and others to come. To the entire Department of French and Italian faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, for their amazing dedication as scholars, pedagogues and mentors. I have learned a tremendous amount from each one of you. From each seminar I took, many ideas have, in one form or another, trickled down into this dissertation. Courses by Professors Todd Reeser, Chloé Hogg, Kirsten Fudeman and Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski challenged me to reflect about “Frenchness” and the “French” “nation” in ways I would probably never have elsewhere. Professor Neil Doshi then equipped me with the necessary tools to refine my critique of the “nation” from a postcolonial perspective, while Professor Giuseppina Mecchia’s influence was essential in gently nudging me towards Rancière’s theoretical apparatus. Very special and heartfelt thanks, therefore, most logically go to an incomparable duo, my co-advisors Professors Giuseppina Mecchia and Neil Doshi: all along, you have complemented each other remarkably well to guide me through this thinking and writing journey, making it challenging as dissertations need to be yet overall enjoyable! I salute your rigueur intellectuelle. Thank you, also, to Pitt German Professor John Lyon for a stimulating Theory course that set me, from the get-go, on the right track to write my very first articles –traces thereof will be found in this dissertation. Thank you to English Literature Professor Susan Andrade and French viii Professor David Pettersen, for taking the time to be on my committee; your feedback was very much appreciated