Public lecture – Réda Bensmaïa (Brown University)
Public lecture – Réda Bensmaïa (Brown University)
Lecture-series New Directions in Literary Postcolonial Studies
Date:Thursday, October 25, 2012
Time: 13.00-15.45
Location: Sweelinckzaal, Drift 21, Utrecht
Registration: osl-fgw@uva.nl
Organized by the Postcolonial Studies Initiative PCI (Utrecht University, hosted by the Center for the Humanities), together with the Research Institute for History and Culture OGC, and the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies OSL
Convenors: Birgit M. Kaiser (UU) and Emmanuelle Radar (UU)
Programme:
13.00-13.15
Introduction by Emmanuelle Radar
13.15-14.30
Lecture by Réda Bensmaïa Derrida, Khatibi and the problems of language followed by a response by Birgit M. Kaiser and discussion
14.30-14.45
coffee break
14.45-15.45
Book launch of Postcolonial Literatures and Deleuze: Colonial Pasts, Differential (Palgrave Macmillan 2012) edited by Lorna Burns and Birgit Kaiser panel discussion with contributors to the book Réda Bensmaïa (Brown), Rick Dolphijn (UU), Kathrin Thiele (UU), and Birgit M. Kaiser (UU); chaired by Rosi Braidotti (CfH, UU)
Programme details:
13.15-14.30
Public lecture by Réda Bensmaïa on Derrida, Khatibi and the problems of language
The lecture will address the problem of language in the postcolonial context of North Africa, as discussed especially in the works of the philosopher Jacques Derrida and the critic and writer Abdelkebir Khatibi. The coexistence of several languages as a result of different waves of migration and colonization in North Africa raises particularily interesting questions about postcolonial subjectivities and identity. Arabic, Berber languages and French coexist at different levels, and Khatibi’s Maghreb Pluriel as well as his Amour Bilingue discuss the implications of this for Maghrebian identities. Jacques Derrida responded to Khatibi’s idea of bilingualism with his own work on Monolingualism of the Other.
Réda Bensmaïa is University Professor of French and Francophone literature in the French Studies Department and in the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University, USA. He has published extensively on French and Francophone literature of the Twentieth century as well as on film theory and contemporary philosophy. He is the author of “The Barthes Effect, Introduction to the reflective Text” (Minnesota, THL, 1987); “The Years of Passages” (Minnesota, Theory out of Bounds, 1995); “Alger ou la Maladie de la Mémoire” (L’Harmattan, 1997) and “Experimental Nations or The Invention of the Maghreb” (Princeton University Press, 2003). He is also the Editor of “Gilles Deleuze” (Lendemains, 1989) and “Recommending Deleuze” (Discourse, 1998). He is presently working on a monograph on Gilles Deleuze’s work and editing a special issue of CINEMAS on the same author, as well as on a book on North African writers which is entitled: “Politiques d’écrivain”.
The lecture will be followed by a book launch of the edited volume Postcolonial Literatures and Deleuze: Colonial Pasts, Differential Futures (eds. Lorna Burns and Birgit M. Kaiser) to which Réda Bensmaïa has contributed a chapter on “Becoming-animal, becoming-political in Rachid Boudjedra’s L’Escargot Entêté”
14.45-15.45
Book launch of Postcolonial Literatures and Deleuze: Colonial Pasts, Differential Futures (Palgrave Macmillan 2012) edited by Lorna Burns and Birgit M. Kaiser
Chair: Rosi Braidotti (UU)
participation of book contributors Réda Bensmaïa (Brown), Rick Dolphijn (UU), Kathrin Thiele (UU), and Birgit Kaiser (UU)
Both events are free and open to the public. Registration: osl-fgw@uva.nl