Moroccan Author Research Articles

Transing the Maghreb: permeable performances of queerness in Abdellah Taïa, Nina Bouraoui, and beyond

This essay explores how a trans theoretical lens can inform interpretations and performances of queer Maghrebi sexualities in various forms of cultural productions like the works of Moroccan author Abdellah Taïa, Algerian author Nina Bouraoui, as well as podcasts and music by Maghrebi artists. It draws from trans theorists to emphasize how a productive performativity resides in the intermediality, the in between of a transition (e.g. transnational) and thus queer transnational sexualities like those depicted in the works of Taïa and Bouraoui can be better understood as always existing at the intersection of the local and global, colonial and indigenous. As a result, by transing queer Maghrebi sexualities, we open new realities of Maghrebi performativity that are not solely conceived of through western ideologies of an itinerary towards a better existence, demonstrating how queerness and Arabness are inherently trans. The construction of queer Maghrebi sexuality within a “trans-”national critical lens offers multiple axes upon which its performance can exist, and its legacy exchanged. To execute this analysis, this essay first defines its trans theoretical approach and then applies it to selected works from Maghrebi authors Abdellah Taïa and Nina Bouraoui. It then expands its analysis away from literature to other forms of cultural productions to showcase the broad impact of a trans approach to queer Maghrebi sexuality.

A SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF STYLES, REGISTERS, AND VARIETIES IN HOT MAROC

In Hot Maroc (2016), Yassin Adnan, a Moroccan author and journalist, reconstructs through the literary fiction the political and social changes of contemporary Morocco, from the end of the reign of Hassan II until today. Through the eyes of the main character, Raḥḥāl, the reader discovers both the social jungle of Marrakesh and the digital Moroccan jungle in which the young man becomes a professional keyboard warrior. Being paid by Moroccan mukhabarat, Raḥḥāl manipulates public opinion through readers’ comments published in an electronic journal, called Hot Maroc. The present study aims to analyse styles, registers, and linguistic variation through a sociolinguistic perspective. Although the main language of the novel is Fuṣḥā (here intended as Modern Standard Arabic), discursive parts make also use of Dāriǧa (Moroccan Arabic). The plurality of voices and linguistic diversity which emerge from online and offline discourses and interactions among characters is not limited to merely enhancing the novel’s 'realism', but it makes it possible to analyse how the communicative nature of language is functionally manipulated to serve instead as an instrument of miscommunication.

Neurocognitive analysis of topographical memory disorder in Alzheimer’s disease from fictional autobiography

AbstractBackgroundTopographical disorientation is very common in Alzheimer’s disease as dementia worsens; however, it is often one of the earliest manifestations. This study examined whether fictional autobiography might be a source for analyzing linguistic features in terms of toponomy and neurocognitive aspects of topographical disorientation in Lalla Fatma, a patient with Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, we investigated how the toponymy of old, current, and new names overlapped in the novel About my Mother (2016), which was written by the Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun.MethodThe neurocognitive approach followed the taxonomy described by Aguirre and D’Esposito (1999) to determine the clinical subtype that best described topographical disorientation or spatial agnosia from Lalla Fatma’s discourse. Text mining and toponymic approaches were used to develop patterns of spatiotemporal themes across novel corpora coupled with computational analysis (T‐Lab plus 21).ResultIn Ben Jelloun’s narrative, the overlapping of Tangier and Fez creates a temporal framework to remap memories that have been trapped between the walls, ramparts, and fortresses of imperial Moroccan cities. Lalla Fatma’s house in Tangier seems to have been neglected, similar to her dilapidated and lost memories. The house involves seeking self and identity in a physical and material reality that is subject to spatiotemporal disorientation. It was also a trigger for expressing the present moment of melancholy and nostalgia aggravated by Lalla Fatma’s declining health and mental status. According to the taxonomy by Aguirre and D’Esposito (1999), two types of topographical disorientation have been found in the novel (landmark agnosia and anterograde disorientation)ConclusionThis study provides evidence suggesting that fictional autobiography should be investigated cross‐culturally in terms of linguistic and neurocognitive aspects in the context of Alzheimer’s disease.

Corps, culture et société: une lecture de L’enfant de sable et La nuit sacrée de Tahar Ben Jelloun

This article aims to study the vision of Tahar Ben Jelloun towards the body through which the social and cultural situation of the Maghreb countries is clarified. The Moroccan author charges the body with the Arab-Muslim tradition, with male domination and culture, with the erasure of women in society. Hadj Ahmed Souleïmane, in a country that favours men, after having had seven daughters, he feels dishonoured, castrated, finally to repair this evil and rehabilitate his honour, he makes his daughter a boy, from birth, who will be the man of the family, his heir, not only of material goods but essentially of the values of masculinity and patriarchy. He manipulates both his daughter’s body and her way of thinking, teaching her how to become a man according to tradition, also inspecting her body, her reactions and her actions. The body is thus polysemous, through which we understand Ben Jelloun’s vision of gender, culture, family education, society, the male/female relationship and religion. Ben Jelloun uses the body for subversive reasons in order to deconstruct society’s vision of the body, of the values and culture that determine society. In his work, the body thus consists in condemning and denouncing.

Bibliometric Study of Publications of Arab Dental Universities in Indexed Journals between 2010 And 2020

Background: Bibliometric is the quantitative analysis of the characteristics of documents published by researchers. Aim: The aim of this study is to make a bibliometric analysis of publications of Arab countries’ universities in dentistry between January 2010 and December 2020 based on publications appeared in the indexed journals on PubMed. Materials and methods: Our work is an exhaustive retrospective descriptive study. Results: Out of 22 Arab countries, 17 have at least one university of dentistry. Our study showed the following results: - 1337 articles were published. - 59 universities from 15 countries published, which represents 32.2%. - 433 professors have published at least one article, which represents 15.58%. - Saudi Arabia is in the lead with 524 articles, which represents 39.19%. - The Saudi Pr. Sadeq Ali Al Maweri occupies the 1st place with 27 articles. - The Moroccan Bourzgui Farid and Ousehal Lahcen from Hassan II University occupy the 11th place with 8 articles. - The contribution of Moroccan authors is 4.11%, occupying the 8th position among Arab countries. - Descriptive cross-sectional studies are at the top of the ranking with 30.96% of articles. - Oral surgery is at the top of the ranking with 30.66% of articles. Conclusion: The results obtained showed that the rate of scientific production in dentistry at Arab dental universities has increased over the years; however, it is still far from that of European and American universities. The infrastructure of research in the Arab world requires efforts from all those responsible.

Bibliometric Study of African Publications in Dental Medicine in Indexed Journals between 2008 and 2018

Introduction: The objective of this work is to make a bibliometric analysis of publications in odontology of African universities between January 2008 and December 2018 based on publications published in indexed journals on Pubmed. Material and Methods: Our work is a comprehensive retrospective descriptive study intended to carry out a bibliometric analysis of articles in odontology published between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2018 by professor researchers from African universities. For each selected article, we determined the authors, the title, their affiliations, the year of publication. Results: Based on our sample of 19 African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Nigeria, Cameroon, Côte d 'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, South Africa, DRC Congo, Senegal, Sudan, Zimbabwe) that included 66 faculties; the results of our study showed: In terms of the number of global publications, Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco and South Africa are the leading countries. With them 4, they account for nearly 80% of the published articles. Côte d 'Ivoire, Cameroon, Guinea and Mali do not participate. The number of African authors who have published is 489, which represents 38.99 per cent of all teaching researchers. South Africa Pr. Feller L ranks 1st with 61 published articles. Cross-sectional descriptive studies lead with an overall percentage of 37.84%. In vitro experimental studies account for 27.75%. Literature and systematic journals 10.50%. Case reports studies represent only 9.38%. Clinical trials with a percentage of 9.35%. Prospective and retrospective studies account for 3.44%. Meta-analyzes 1.39%. In the disciplines of published articles, conservative odontology represents 22.82%, periodontology 20.19%, surgical odontology 16.50%, orthodontics 16.42%, prosthesis 15.35% and pedodontics 8.70%. The contribution of Moroccan authors is 12.47%. Moroccan Pr.Bourzgui ranks 4th with 16 items. Discussion: The results show that African universities have made significant progress; however, they are still very far behind European and American universities in terms of scientific publications in odontology. Conclusion: Despite the efforts of academic teachers in the publication of scientific articles in odontology, the number of publications remains low, hence the obligation to adopt a new approach in the future. African academic institutions need to make greater efforts in the field of scientific research in all its forms by creating departments focused primarily on research and by increasing the budget Devoted to this purpose.

Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account: A Lost Narrative

From the earlier times the voices of the minorities especially the Muslims have been subjugated by the forces. Many of the texts written in the olden times, whether fictional or non-fictional hardly have any mention of Muslims in them. One such text being the historical account of the Narvaez expedition that took place in 1527, which was chronicled by Cabeza de Vaca, one of the four survivors of the expedition. What is surprising is that one of the survivors was an African slave, Estabanico but he is hardly mentioned in the original, despite being part of the expedition that stretched to eight year. Fast forward to the 21st century which is the age of postcolonialism and where the once oppressed communities are finally speaking about their truth, Moroccan author, Laila Lalami through her novel, The Moor’s Account decided to give voice and a backstory to the African slave, Estabanico. The current paper deals with the complexities of the novel and tries to provide reasons as to why Cabeza de Vaca intentionally omitted the Estabanico’s account of the travels. The paper also discusses the ingenuine use of narrative tools made by the author in the retelling of the story of a forgotten Muslim slave. It also narrates the importance of women characters in the Islamic culture of those days, when the western woman was not as liberated as she is today. Lastly, the paper draws a parallel between Estabanico’s condition during the expedition and that of the Muslim population in the post 9/11 world.

La littérature de l’entre-deux et le regard sur la langue française. Enjeux linguistiques et identitaires dans l'oeuvre de Fouad Laroui

Fouad Laroui, a talented Moroccan author who writes in French and at times Dutch, is an exemplar of the in-between – in fact, the in-between-several-cultures. Like many Moroccans, he is “neither here nor there”. His original work, notable for the author’s dual belonging as well as its highly ironic vein, embodies multiple facets of multiculturalism, which he experienced during his youth at the French “lycee” in Casablanca, his trips to the western world (he now lives in Amsterdam) and through openness to European cultures. His stories in French are enriched with diverse references, resulting in a sort of patchwork – a jumble of words where the French language is present, but it is coloured by other languages and literary reminiscences (Laroui cited in Martin & Drevet 107).This article reflects on the author’s relationship with the French language and culture, by analysing the sense of identity and search for identity of his characters whose connections with France, and the western world, are marked by conflicting feelings, bearing traces of the Maghreb authors’ own sense of being torn. Is French an instrument of oppression or emancipation? The article focuses on two representative works, “Le jour ou Malika ne s’est pas mariee” (2009) and “Une annee chez les Francais” (2010), set against the complex, multilingual backdrop of Morocco as discussed in his essay “Le drame linguistique marocain” (2011).

Autres plumes littéraires d'expression française au Maroc ed. by Rabia Redouane

Reviewed by: Autres plumes littéraires d'expression française au Maroc ed. by Rabia Redouane Joan Listernick Redouane, Rabia, éd. Autres plumes littéraires d'expression française au Maroc. L'Harmattan, 2019. ISBN 978-2-343-16838-8. Pp. 274. This volume contains a series of critical essays on texts by Moroccan authors, chosen not only for the quality of their work, but for the fact that they are little known outside Morocco. In her introduction, Rabia Redouane points to the diversity and development of Moroccan literature, highlighting its reception by several critics (Marc Gontard, Abderrahman Tenkoul, Najib Redouane, Khalid Zekri, and Annie Devergnas-Dieumegard, [End Page 212] in particular). Redouane, the author of Femmes arabes et écritures francophones Machrek—Maghreb (2014), establishes the relationship between themes and style. She then succeeds in selecting essays that forefront this link. The thematic focus of the primary authors presented runs the gamut from the disenchantment of a lost youth to the condition of women in Morocco, taking into account the role of Islamic fundamentalism. Taken as a whole, the essays paint a picture of a contemporary Morocco, the troubling aspects of which preoccupy the authors. In one of the most interesting essays, Mimoso-Ruiz analyzes how Mokhtar Chaoui transforms the magical realism of Haitian literature to suit Moroccan culture. "[U]n printemps avec des rivières de sang et des montagnes de cadavres," writes Chaoui, referring to the Arab Spring. Mimoso-Ruiz also explains that Chaoui draws from the conventions of the fable and fairy tales to use animals as metaphors. In fact, this recycling of codes drawn from French and Francophone literature occurs in other texts examined in this volume. As mentioned in Mésavage's essay on Mohammed Laallaoui: "Aussi la mythologie grecque, le théâtre français classique, une légende marocaine et une certaine modernité dégradée se marient-ils pour créer un effet insolite et original qui lie le passé et le présent de trois cultures" (160). But such plurality of influences is used to express its own specific reality: the texts often find their inspiration in pan-African themes, even while resonating stylistically with European (and in particular, French and Francophone) texts. The critics in this volume do not seem to pick up on this distinction. This collection should be of interest to scholars of Maghrebi literature who want to broaden their corpus of study. As the essays are short and not meant to be an exhaustive study of the authors' works, they pique our interest without satiating it, and point in directions where new research would be fruitful. Thus, Redouane does succeed in enlarging the canon of Moroccan writers whose work deserves analysis. Joan Listernick Boston University (MA) Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

IDENTITAS DAN POSISI PEREMPUAN DALAM ROMAN L’ENFANT DE SABLE KARYA TAHAR BEN JELLOUN

Identity and gender are sensitive issues in the third world. This issue has always clashed with the cultural nature of human beings and also become a foreign territory for them. Both men and women become opposite positions. They occupy different places in third world society. Women are culturally stereotyped less favourable for existence in the presence of men. Tahar Ben Jelloun, a French-born Moroccan author, was able to take quite a careful situation in his neighbourhood. He, in the novel L'Enfant de Sable is able to provide a clear picture of the position and identity of Algerian women and at the same time also posing with male characters. He who was born of a third world society was able to draw these themes into postcolonial issues, primarily on the themes of women and their existence in society.

Satiric Literature for an Education System in Crisis: Mohamed Nedali’s Grâce à Jean de la Fontaine!

In the press and in public appearances, Moroccan authors frequently accuse the education system of not sufficiently encouraging students to become readers and consumers of literature. Mohamed Nedali’s novel Grâce à Jean de la Fontaine! uses the form of a semi-autobiographical novel to make a similar accusation. Nedali’s text is one of a growing number of Moroccan narratives that criticize local school systems, thus occupying a paradoxical position. Can a novel truly critique the institution responsible for its continued existence? In this article, I argue that Grâce à Jean de la Fontaine! uses the literary form to reimagine the relationship between literature and education. The text’s enigmatic narrator, Mohamed Né… tests the boundaries of autobiography in order to satirize the foundational assumption of the educational autobiography: that the school turns students into authors. The novel also utilizes Jean de la Fontaine as an allegorical figure. La Fontaine’s Fables, a traditionally pedagogical text that nonetheless uses satire to speak truth to power, echoes the problematic position of Nedali’s Grâce à Jean de la Fontaine!. Ultimately, I show that by interrogating and deconstructing the cultural significance of La Fontaine, this text imagines how Moroccan francophone literature can use its marginal status as a space of educational critique, while still promoting the continued growth of local literary culture.

Authorial positioning systems

This article examines how Moroccan authors cite each other in their literary works and how, in doing so, they trace the contours and location of a Moroccan literary sphere in French. While we might expect this type of citation to seek to ‘decentre’ France or disrupt French literary hegemony, it instead serves to position and legitimize the role of the ‘engaged’ author between various literary traditions. In order to elucidate this function, the article first examines previous work on how Moroccan and Maghrebi authors cite each other, discussing the possible meanings of this practice and of the types of critical attention it has garnered. The novels of Abdelhak Serhane are then examined as a noteworthy example of Moroccan intertext. Serhane’s practice of directly evoking other Moroccan francophone authors’ work offers a new means to consider intertext: as a deliberate contribution to the diversity of storytelling, and as a way to highlight the long yet complicated tradition of the politically engaged Moroc...

The Modern Literary (After)lives of al-Khiḍr

Prominent examples of major Qur'anic characters in modern world literature include Joseph (and Zulaykha) -like characters in the 1984 Arabic novel, al-Rahīna (The Hostage) by the Yemeni writer Zayd Muṭīʿ Dammāj (d. 2000) and the fictionalised portrayal of the women around the Prophet Muḥammad in Algerian filmmaker and novelist Assia Djebar's 1991 French novel, Loin de Médine (Far from Medina). In this article I focus, rather, on a ‘minor’ Qur'anic character, al-Khiḍr (cf. Q. 18:65–82). I begin by looking briefly at the evolution of al-Khiḍr in Islamic literatures generally and then focus on his deployment in several short fictional accounts, viz. the 1995 French novella L'homme du livre (Muhammad, A Novel) by Moroccan author Driss Chraïbi (d. 2007); Victor Pelevin's 1994 Russian short story, ‘Prints Gosplana’ (Prince of Gosplan); the 1998 short story, ‘The Mapmakers of Spitalfields’, by Bangladeshi-British writer Manzu Islam; and Reza Daneshvar's 2004 Persian tale, ‘Mahboobeh va-Āl’ (‘Mahboobeh and Ahl’). I characterise the ways in which these modern authors draw on the al-Khiḍr type, persona, and legend, and go on to suggest how and why the use of al-Khiḍr in modern literature is productive and versatile.

Untranslatable Desire: Interethnic Relationships in Franco–Arab Literature

Abstract This article examines the sexualization of postcolonial relations at the level of literature, paying special attention to how postcolonial resentment is portrayed via the figure of the “Arab boy,” transplanted from an exploited status in colonial settings to an unassimilated status in contemporary France. The difficulties of communication that occur, when certain French writers aim to depict this Arab figure, are then sourced to problems of cultural translation in a variety of instances. Gay-identified Moroccan authors like Rachid O. and Abdellah Taïa, who write in French from France, have responded to calls for sexual disclosure as “native informants,” while simultaneously supplying disturbing and destabilizing answers in stories often featuring sexualized Arab youth. These writers first reify and then challenge a tradition of sexualized literary collaboration that has existed ever since the writer and translator Paul Bowles fostered the emergence of Moroccan voices for a Western audience. Contemporary writers like Renaud Camus and Frédéric Mitterrand have themselves pursued forms of collaboration with North African cultural actors that recall the collaborative precedent. Between the era of Tangiers as a haven for gay writers and now, however, their young Arab interlocutors have gone from being available and servile, to “difficult” and resentful.

Being-in-the-world: the Afropolitan Moroccan author's worldview in the new millennium

In the last decade, many contemporary African authors of French expression from both North and sub-Saharan Africa have posited perspectives in their novels that reveal a global cosmopolitanism that uniquely defines African literature in the twenty-first century. Moroccan authors writing in French such as Youssouf Amine Elalamy and Fouad Laroui, among others, promote a way of being African in the world that disassociates the author from the literary tropes of earlier decades. They no longer dwell on the angst of the postcolonial condition, the traumas rooted in tensions between modernity and traditionalism, the sociocultural and economic divisions between North and sub-Saharan Africa, poverty and despair. Moroccan authors promote an ‘Afropolitanism’ in their works that connotes movement forward, to engage in becoming something other than the pessimistic stereotypes associated with Morocco as well as the African continent. Au cours de la dernière décennie, de nombreux auteurs africains contemporainsd'expression française du Maghreb et de l'Afrique sub-saharienne proposent des perspectives dans leurs romans qui révèlent un cosmopolitisme global qui définit de façon unique la littérature africaine du XXIe siècle. Les auteurs marocains écrivant en français comme Youssouf Amine Elalamy et Fouad Laroui, entre autres, soutiennent une manière d’être africaine dans le monde qui dissocie l'auteur des tropes littéraires des décennies précédentes. Ils se centrent moins sur les sujets tels que l'angoisse de la condition postcoloniale, les traumatismes socioculturels enracinés dans les tensions entre la modernité et le traditionalisme, les divisions socioculturelles et économiques entre le Maghreb et l'Afrique subsaharienne, la pauvreté et le désespoir. Les auteurs marocains promeuvent un « Afropolitanisme » dans leurs œuvres qui évoque un mouvement vers l'avant pour engager autres choses que les stéréotypes pessimistes associés au Maroc ainsi qu'au continent africain.

Analyse des cas cliniques du JTCC : entre clinique pure et recherche clinique

Resume Depuis sa creation en 1991, le Journal de therapie comportementale et cognitive (JTCC) recoit regulierement des cas cliniques dont l’interet est d’apporter le regard du clinicien au-dela de celui du chercheur meme s’ils sont parfois confondus. Cet article est une synthese de l’ensemble des cas cliniques publies dans le JTCC entre 1991 et 2012 qui concerne 54 documents. Chaque article est etudie sous differents angles : le ou les auteurs, population concernee (enfant, adulte, dyade), pathologies concernees ou situation probleme, referencement a des classifications nosographiques, type d’echelles psychometriques utilisees, presence ou non d’une analyse fonctionnelle et son modele de reference, type de therapie mise en place, evolution du trouble, reevaluations clinique et psychometrique et nombre de references bibliographiques. Il ressort de ces lectures que les presentations sont tres diversifiees tant sur les pathologies concernees que sur le recours aux tres nombreuses echelles de psychometrie ou encore sur les analyses fonctionnelles ou pour finir sur le recours aux nombreuses composantes des therapies comportementales, cognitives et emotionnelles. Cet article amene a poser la question sur l’interet de presenter des cas cliniques, de partager des experiences cliniques et de recherche, mais aussi de preconiser l’etablissement d’un guide referencant l’ensemble des pratiques afin qu’un langage commun soit utilise. Il souligne aussi l’interet des cas cliniques, comme complements indispensables a la recherche.

Musik, Kultur und Gesellschaft in Marokko: Ibrāhīm at-Tādilī ar-Ribāṭī und seine Sicht auf die andalusische Musik

The article presents a musicological text by the 19th century Moroccan author Ibrāhīm at-Tādilī, Aġānī s-siqā wa-maġānī l-mūsīqā au al-irtiqāʾ ilā ʿulūm al-mūsīqā, based on a manuscript now preserved at Granada. In this article I will concentrate on the theoretical and socio-cultural implications. The Aġānī s-siqā are an important document that reflects the strong relationship between the Andalusian-Moroccan music and the Moroccan identity, continuing until the present today.

Ville, corps, dessin, et peinture dans Labyrinthe des sentiments de Tahar Ben Jelloun

Labyrinthe des sentiments, a novel published in 1999, is a journey across Naples which combines fantasy and reality. In this maze - which accommodates the narrative of Moroccan protagonists Gharib and Wahida - there exist two different aesthetics that correspond to two particular spaces: painting and drawing, on the one hand, and literature and the notions of expansion and linearity, on the other. Tahar Ben Jelloun doesn't confine himself to juxtaposing painting, drawing, and literature, but rather opens up literary conventions to facilitate an active collaboration with other arts. As an admirer of Caravaggio, Delacroix, Giacometti, Pasolini, Pignon-Ernest, and a reader of Diderot and Baudelaire, the Moroccan author writes with his eyes, thus combining the visual with the textual. For him, art cannot be separated from life: art rivals life, it becomes eternal life, and the lives of the characters in this novel are constantly influenced by art. Indeed, for Ben Jelloun, literary and artistic creation are the channels through which a range of voices make themselves heard, even if the logic of writing forces him to reduce sculpture, painting, or drawing to a simple exercise in literature! By celebrating painting and drawing, the 1987 Goncourt winner has undoubtedly contributed to making the ancient doctrine of Ut pictura poesis come to life in contemporary French literature.Labyrinthe des sentiments, roman publié en 1999, est une traversée de Naples entre imaginaire et réalité. Dans ce dédale - qui renferme les drames des protagonistes marocains Gharib et Wahida - cohabitent deux esthétiques distinctes qui correspondent à deux espaces particuliers: la peinture, le dessin, d'une part, la littérature, et les notions d'expansion et de linéarité, de l'autre. Pour Tahar Ben Jelloun, il ne s'agit pas de juxtaposer peinture, dessin, et littérature mais plutôt d'ouvrir l'ordre littéraire à une collaboration active avec d'autres arts. Admirateur de Caravage, Delacroix, Giacometti, Pasolini, Pignon-Ernest, lecteur de Diderot et Baudelaire, l'écrivain marocain écrit avec les yeux, effectuant ainsi le mariage du visible et du lisible. Pour lui, l'art ne peut être vraiment séparé de la vie: il rivalise avec elle, il devient vie en permanence, et la vie des personnages du roman est sans cesse influencée par l'art. En fait, Ben Jelloun conçoit le faire plastique et le faire poétique comme deux machines à faire entendre des voix: tant pis si piégé par la logique de l'écriture, il réduit la sculpture, le tableau, ou le dessin à un simple exercice littéraire! En célébrant la peinture et le dessin, le prix Goncourt 1987 a sans doute contribué à faire vivre la doctrine antique de l'Ut pictura poesis dans la littérature francophone contemporaine.

The Vaults of St. John the Theologian at Ephesos

E ver since the first excavation of the remains of the church of St. John the Theologian on the hill of Ayasoluk, the reconstruction of the vaulted, sixth-century phase of the monument has been a major challenge in the field of early Byzantine architecture. This is partly due to the historic significance of the building. According to the contemporary account of Procopius, the church, rebuilt and enlarged under the auspices of Justinian, constituted the Ephesian counterpart to the Constantinopolitan church of the Holy Apostles.1 It was later to become the heart of medieval Ephesos and one of the most important pilgrimage churches in Asia Minor.2 Besides its historical interest, the reconstruction of St. John’s has a great significance for the study of early Byzantine vaulting technology. Indeed, reconstruction offers the only opportunity to recapture the form of the enormous brick vaults of the church, which are now lost. These sophisticated vaults, which seem to have survived in an earthquake-prone area for more than eight centuries, constitute a remarkable feat of structural engineering.3 They must have been a highly innovative structure, erected at a time when most churches were timber-roofed. The task of accurate and reasoned reconstruction through the scrutiny of archaeological evidence is more demanding than it may initially appear, in spite of the systematic exploration of the monument since its discovery in 1921. Eight decades of excavation and survey have made the ground plan of the aisled cruciform church as well as the footprint of its atrium, baptistery and skeuophylakion mostly clear (Figure 1).4 Some parts have even become the object of full-scale physical reconstruction (Figure 2). In addition to this, Hans Hormann, Mustafa Buyukkolanci, and Andreas Thiel have shed light on the building phases that preceded Justinian’s vaulted church.5 Still, in spite …

Morocco, Latin America, and the Problem of Reading

This article analyzes three short stories by Muḥammad Zafzāf, the late Moroccan author, exploring Hispanophone roles in Moroccan literary culture. The analysis finds that Zafzāf writes an Arabic metatext about Spanish language, and speaks about Latin Americanness as a cultural referent, all in order to probe the limits of Arabic. Where Arabic fails to be intelligible—a failure represented in fictional Arabic speakers’ frustrated encounters with European languages and societies—Zafzāf's fiction looks not northward but westward, seeking an explanation in a Latin American exotic. The article places this ethnographic fiction in the context of the modern Arab literary field, where Moroccan literature holds an acutely contested position. Zafzāf renders Moroccan fiction legible to his Mashriqi readership—which makes up a large portion of his audience overall—defining Moroccan identity against a Hispanophone other. This foreign figure's specifically Latin American characteristics change, and challenge, the postcolonial cultural oppositions Arabic literature has historically employed.