Cover Pages and Abstract May 2014
The Contentious Classroom: Education in Postcolonial Literature from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia Erin Twohig Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Erin Twohig All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT The Contentious Classroom: Education in Postcolonial Literature from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia Erin Twohig ! My dissertation examines literary portraits of education in French- and Arabic-language literature from the Maghreb. The texts that I study recount their protagonists’ experience, as students or teachers, in the school system following independence in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. I focus, in particular, on debates relating to the “Arabization” of education. Arabizing education in the Maghreb was considered a fundamental act of decolonization, yet its promotion of a single national language provoked much criticism. I examine how authors use literary depictions of the classroom to treat critical topics surrounding language policy, national identity projects, the legacy of the colonial past, and the future of the education system. The chapters of this work explore four critical issues in discussions of education: the relationship between “colonial” and “postcolonial” education systems, the place of Amazigh (Berber) minorities in an Arabized education system, the effect of education on gender dynamics, and the “economics of education” which exclude many students from social mobility. This work examines thirteen literary texts, seven written in French and six in Arabic: ‘Abd al-Ghani Abu al-‘Azm’s Al ḍarīḥ and Al ḍarīḥ al akhar, Leila Abouzeid’s Rujūʻ ilā al-ṭufūlah and Al-Faṣl al-akhīr, Wahmed Ben Younes’s Yemma, Karima Berger’s L’enfant des deux mondes, Maissa Bey’s Bleu blanc vert, Wahiba Khiari’s Nos silences, Fouad Laroui’s “L’Etrange affaire du cahier bounni,” Mohamed Nedali’s Grâce à Jean de la Fontaine!, Brick Oussaïd’s Les coquelicots de l’oriental, Habib Selmi’s Jabal al-‘anz, and Zohr Wanissi’s Min Yawmīyāt Mudarrisah Ḥurrah.
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