France and its “Others:” Race, Nation, and Identity in (Post)Imperial Society
History and Literature 90EL, Fall 2020 Monday/Wednesday 12:15-1:15 pm EST, via Zoom
Instructor: John Boonstra ([email protected]) Office hours: Monday 1:30-2:30 pm EST and by appointment, via Zoom
Description of Course: In a controversial—and bestselling—recent novel, Michel Houellebecq imagines France’s government and society taken over from within by Muslim extremists who impose Sharia law. Fears of internal “colonization”—by Muslims, immigrants, Jews, Americans, and various “Others”—are nothing new in French history. Yet, by tapping into the growing influence of the anti-immigrant extreme right in French politics over the past several decades, the popularity of Houellebecq’s novel raises a number of provocative questions for contemporary French—and global—society: how has a country premised on the “equality” and “fraternity” of all of its citizens continued to exclude religious, ethnic, and racial “Others?” And, perhaps more perplexingly, how did what was once a global empire—whose reach extended from the South Pacific to the Caribbean, from North and sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia—become so anxious about being “colonized” within Europe itself? Most proximately, how did the violence of France’s colonial wars—in Algeria and Indochina especially—and the tumult of postcolonial migration shape the fears and fantasies of national and imperial identity?
This course will address these questions by taking a longer and wider view of the (post)colonial experiences of twentieth-century France. Surveying works of history, politics, literature, anthropology, and film—from Sartre and de Beauvoir to Houellebecq and Sarkozy, Ousmane Sembène and Frantz Fanon to Azouz Begag, Linda Lê, and Alain Mabanckou—we will seek to understand how the perceived dangers of invasion drew on and departed from the ambiguities and insecurities of imperial power.
Course Assignments and Grading: This will be a reading- and writing-intensive course. Accordingly, you are expected to have read each week’s texts before we meet. You will each 1 write three papers—and give one short oral presentation—over the course of the semester. In addition, you should plan to post at least five short responses to a week’s readings. Participation will be an important component of your final grade.
- Your first paper (6-8 pages) will be an analysis of one of the primary texts (novel, film, memoir, short story or photographs) from the first half of the semester. The paper should have an argument that you support with evidence from the text. This will be worth 15% of your grade, and will be due on Friday, October 16 at 5:00 pm EST. You may submit an optional draft by Monday, October 5 for (ungraded) feedback.
- The second assignment will be twofold: first, you will write a 4-5 page reflection paper on a given week’s theme, drawing from both that week’s primary and secondary texts (the latter marked with an asterisk in the Course Schedule); in conjunction with the instructor, you will also prepare a 10-15 minute presentation on your intervention. The paper will be due the day of the presentation. Each component will be worth 10% of your grade.
- You will select a topic for your final paper (10-12 pages) in conjunction with the instructor. This will entail secondary research to develop an original argument drawing from a primary source from the syllabus. It will be worth 25% of your grade and is due Wednesday, December 16 at 5:00 pm EST. You may submit an optional draft by Monday, December 7 for (ungraded) feedback.
- Your five discussion posts will be worth a total of 15% of your grade. These may include questions for discussion as well as short responses to prompts given the previous week, and should be posted on Canvas by 5 pm the day before class. *At least two* of these responses should be posted during the first five weeks of the semester.
- The remaining 25% of your grade will be determined through class participation. This will entail active listening as well as speaking; as a rule, I am more interested in your engagement in our discussions than in the quantity or “quality” of individual comments.
Attendance, participation, and class culture: Attendance is required. Our classroom will be a space for intellectual conversation, debate, and questioning, so your active participation and engagement with the material is imperative. If you are quieter by nature, please come speak to me in office hours so we can discuss strategies for your participation.
Pronouns: Preferred gender pronouns will be respected by everyone in class. I will default to the pronouns you have selected on my.harvard; please let me know if you have other preferences. Please address your fellow students directly by name or as “you” when responding to a point made by your classmates, with whom you are in conversation.
Subject material: Our subject matter can be divisive and offensive and is certainly worthy of scrutiny and critique. However, I encourage you to approach the material as an important (if often difficult) part of history and culture, meant to spark lively discussion about its past and its present significance. You are welcome to come speak with me with any concerns.
Printing, screens, and Internet: Your active engagement with our sources and your peers is essential to a productive learning environment and generative discussion. Since many of our sources are accessed electronically, please consider whether printing hard copies of PDFs or using an e-reader will facilitate stronger attention to the materials and the conversation. During class meetings, please close all browser tabs except course readings,
2 and turn off any chat or messaging apps, as well as notifications. Our conversation will be most rewarding when you speak with each other, rather than at your screens or printouts.
Email and Canvas: I will sometimes provide email updates about readings, assignments, and other course matters. While I am always happy to talk during office hours, you are also welcome to email me with any questions. I try to respond to all emails within a 24 to 48- hour period; please read and respond to your email regularly. Please also check the course Canvas site frequently for any changes to the readings and assignments.
Deadlines and extensions: Everyone will start with three “grace days” to be used at your discretion. You do not need to ask for an extension; you may use these days as necessary, at your discretion. Your three days may be used in any permutation, but once you have used all three, no more will be granted, so plan accordingly. After all days are used, papers will be deducted a step for each late day (an A becomes an A–, etc.).
Collaboration and Plagiarism: Collaboration is welcome and encouraged. You may find it helpful to consult with your peers about readings or paper ideas. However, all written work submitted for evaluation should be the product of your own thought, research, and writing. Accordingly, you must properly cite any engagement with other authors. In accordance with the Honor Code, plagiarism is a serious offense and must be reported to the Honor Council. If you are unsure of what constitutes plagiarism, please be sure to consult the Harvard Guide to Using Sources or come speak with me during office hours.
Accommodations: If you need academic accommodations in this course, please speak with me and present your letter from the Accessible Education Office (AEO). If you wish to notify me, please do so by the second week of the term so that I may respond in a timely manner, since accommodations are not retroactive. The AEO consults with any student who experiences barriers related to physical or mental health or learning disabilities. Students are not required to share their diagnoses or clinical documentation with anyone outside of the AEO, but you may wish to notify me if elements of this course are potentially inaccessible. All discussions will remain as confidential as possible within the parameters of FERPA; I may consult AEO to discuss appropriate implementation. Please be in touch with the AEO directly if you are not yet registered.
Assigned Texts: The following books are available for purchase (used or new) and as ebooks through online Course Reserves. PDFs of other readings are available on the course Canvas site, where films will also be available for streaming. If you encounter any problems (financial or otherwise) accessing course material, please get in touch with me.
Maïssa Bey, Do You Hear in the Mountains…and Other Stories, transl. Erin Lamm (University of Virginia Press, 2002/2018) Linda Lê, Slander, transl. Esther Allen (University of Nebraska Press, 1993/1996) Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation, transl. John Cullen (Penguin, 2014/2015) Azouz Begag, Shantytown Kid, transl. Naïma Wolf and Alec Hargreaves (University of Nebraska Press, 1986/2007) Alain Mabanckou, Blue White Red, transl. Alison Dundy (Indiana UP, 1998/2013) Fatou Diome, The Belly of the Atlantic, transl. Ros Schwartz (Serpent’s Tail, 2003/2006) Michel Houellebecq, Submission, trans. Lorin Stein (Picador, 2015/2016) Colette Fellous, This Tilting World, transl. Sophie Lewis (Two Lines Press, 2019)
* n.b. Syllabus is subject to change throughout the semester!
3 Course Schedule:
I. (Post)Colonial Knowledge and Control
Week 1. Confronting the “Other”
Wednesday (September 2):
Edward Said, Orientalism (Vintage, 1978/1994), “Introduction,” pp. 1-28
Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism [Discours sur le colonialisme], transl. Joan Pinkham (Monthly Review Press, 1955/2000), pp. 31-34
Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized [Portrait du Colonisé précédé par Portrait du Colonisateur], transl. Howard Greenfield (Orion Press, 1957/1965), “Mythical Portrait of the Colonized” and “Situations of the Colonized,” pp. 79-118
Week 2. Constructing the “Other”
Monday (September 7): * NO CLASS (Labor Day) *
Wednesday (September 9): Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew [Réflexions sur la Question Juive], transl. George J. Becker (Schocken, 1946/1948), pp. 7-33, 53-54, 143-153
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex [Le Deuxième Sexe], transl. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallaier (Vintage, 1949/2011), Vol. 1, “Facts and Myths,” “Introduction,” and Vol. II, “Lived Experience,” Ch. 1, “The Girl,” pp. 1-18, 283-340
Week 3. Controlling the “Other”
Monday (September 14): Ousmane Sembène, Black Girl [La noire de…] (1966) [film] (55 minutes)
Malek Alloula, The Colonial Harem (1981/1986), selected photographs
Wednesday (September 16): Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, Samba (2014) [film] (119 minutes)
* Clifford Rosenberg, Policing Paris: The Origins of Modern Immigration Control between the World Wars (Cornell University Press, 2006), “Introduction: Immigration and the State,” pp. 1-14
Week 4. Conscripting the “Other”
Monday (September 21): Rachid Bouchareb, Days of Glory [Indigènes ] (2006) [film] (128 minutes)
Wednesday (September 23): Banania advertisements, selected images
4 Joe Lunn, Memoirs of a Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War (Heinemann, 1999), Ch. 6, “‘Bons Soldats’ and ‘Sales Nègres:’ Senegalese Contacts with the French,” pp. 157-186
* Richard Fogarty, Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), “Introduction,” pp. 1-14
II. Race, Gender, and Representation
Week 5. (En)Gendering the “Other”
Monday (September 28): Maïssa Bey, Do You Hear in the Mountains…and Other Stories [Entendez-vous dans les montagnes…], transl. Erin Lamm (University of Virginia Press, 2002/2018), “Do You Hear in the Mountains…” and “‘What’s An Arab?,’” pp. 1-55, 142-151
Wednesday (September 30): Bey, Do You Hear in the Mountains…, “Improvisations,” “On a Comma,” and “The Little Girl from the Slum Without a Name,” pp. 86-93, 102-111, 152-156
* Elisa Camiscioli, Reproducing the French Race: Immigration, Intimacy, and Embodiment in the Early Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2009), “Introduction: Embodiment and the Nation,” pp. 1-19
Week 6. Racializing the “Other”
Monday (October 5): * OPTIONAL analysis paper draft due by 5 pm *
Med Hondo, Oh, Sun [Soleil, Ô] (1970) [film], (98 minutes)
Wednesday (October 7): Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks [Peau noire, masques blancs], transl. Richard Philcox (Grove Press, 1952/2008), Ch. s 5-6, “The Lived Experience of the Black Man” and “The Black Man and Psychopathology,” pp. 89-184
* Katelyn Knox, Race on Display in 20th- and 21st Century France (Oxford University Press, 2016), “Introduction,” pp. 1-20
Week 7. Representing the “Other”
Monday (October 12): * NO CLASS (Indigenous People’s Day) *
Wednesday (October 14):
Linda Lê, Slander [Calomnies], transl. Esther Allen (University of Nebraska Press, 1993/1996) (156 pp)
Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, Statues Also Die [Les statues meurent aussi] (1953) [film] (30 minutes)
5 * Dana Hale, Races on Display: French Representations of Colonized Peoples, 1886-1940 (Indiana University Press, 2008), “Introduction,” pp. 1-6
* 6-8 pp ANALYSIS PAPER DUE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16 at 5:00 pm EST *
Week 8. Re-Presenting the “Other”
Monday (October 19): Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation [Meursault, contre-enquête], transl. John Cullen (Penguin, 2014/2015), Chapters I-X (pp 1-106)
Wednesday (October 21): Daoud, The Meursault Investigation, Chapters XI-XV (pp 107-143)
* Jennifer Boittin, Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris (University of Nebraska Press, 2010), “Introduction,” pp. viii-xxviii
III. (Im)migration and (Dis)integration
Week 9. Educating the “Other”
Monday (October 26): Azouz Begag, Shantytown Kid [Le Gone du Chaâba], transl. Naïma Wolf and Alec Hargreaves (University of Nebraska Press, 1986/2007), pp. 1-133
Wednesday (October 28): Begag, Shantytown Kid, pp. 133-199
Laurent Cantet, The Class [Entre les murs] (2008) [film] (128 minutes)
* Tahar Ben Jelloun, French Hospitality: Racism and North African Immigrants (Columbia University Press, 1984/1997), “Introduction,” pp. 1-36
Week 10. Excluding the “Other”
Monday (November 2): Alain Mabanckou, Blue White Red [Bleu, blanc, rouge], transl. Alison Dundy (Indiana University Press, 1998/2013), Part I, pp. 1-78
Mehdi Charef, Tea in the Harem [Le thé au harem d’Archimède] (1985) [film] (110 minutes)
Wednesday (November 4): Mabanckou, Blue White Red, Part II, pp. 79-147
* Paul Silverstein, Postcolonial France: Race, Islam, and the Future of the Republic (Pluto Press, 2018), “Introduction: Whither Postcolonial France?,” pp. 1-20
Week 11. (Un)Employing the “Other”
Monday (November 9): Fatou Diome, The Belly of the Atlantic [Le ventre de l’Atlantique], transl. Lulu Norman and Ros Schwartz (Serpent’s Tail, 2003/2006), Ch.s 1-9, pp. 1-126 6
Wednesday (November 11): Diome, The Belly of the Atlantic, Ch.s 10-14, pp. 127-183
Abdelmalek Sayad, The Suffering of the Immigrant [La double absense: Des illusions de l’émigré aux souffrances de l’immigré], transl. David Macey (Polity, 1999/2004), Ch. 11, “Appendix: Three Interviews Concerning Identity,” pp. 264-277
* Felix Germain, Decolonizing the Republic: African and Caribbean Migrants in Postwar Paris, 1946- 1974 (Michigan State University Press, 2016), “Introduction,” pp. xv-xxiv
Week 12. Embracing the “Other?”
Monday (November 16): Michel Houellebecq, Submission [Soumission], transl. Lorin Stein (Picador, 2015/2016), Parts I-IV, pp. 1-180
Wednesday (November 18): Houellebecq, Submission, Part V, pp. 181-246
* Naomi Davidson, Only Muslim: Embodying Islam in Twentieth-Century France (Cornell University Press, 2012), “Introduction,” pp. 1-14
IV. Memory and Resistance
Week 13. (Mis)Remembering the “Other”
Monday (November 23): * Individual meetings to discuss final papers *
* Please submit a short, one-paragraph final paper proposal (ungraded), describing what text(s) and theme(s) you'll be focusing on and what question(s) you'll be addressing. *
Monday (November 30): Nicolas Sarkozy, Speech in Dakar (2007)
Colette Fellous, This Tilting World [Pièces détachées], transl. Sophie Lewis (Two Lines Press, 2019), pp. 3-53
Wednesday (December 2): Fellous, This Tilting World, pp. 55-160
* OPTIONAL analysis paper draft due by 5 pm on MONDAY, DECEMBER 7 *
** FINAL PAPER DUE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16 at 5:00 pm EST **
7