North African Women Research Articles

Feminist Interpretations of Augustine: Re-Reading the Canon (review)

Reviewed by: Feminist Interpretations of Augustine: Re-Reading the Canon Roland J. Teske, S.J. Judith Chelius Stark , editor. Feminist Interpretations of Augustine: Re-Reading the Canon. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Pp. x + 326. Paper, $35.00. This present volume is the twenty-ninth in the Re-Reading the Canon series, the title of each of which volumes begins Feminist Interpretations of . . . . Surprisingly, the volume on Augustine has appeared relatively late in the series. The editor has collected eleven essays plus a poem on feminist interpretations of the bishop of Hippo, who has certainly exerted a powerful influence on the view of women in the Western Christian churches of all major denominations. Besides the essays, Stark has provided a substantial introduction to the volume in which she touches upon the principal events of Augustine's life and briefly sketches the main points of each essay. The feminist interpretations of Augustine included in the volume represent a broad spectrum running from quite radical to fairly moderate or even tame approaches. In "Augustine, Sexuality, Gender, and Women," Rosemary Radford Ruether presents a call to critique the views of Augustine from which women and men have suffered for over 1500 years in Western Christianity. Anne-Marie Bowery argues in "Monica: The Feminine Face of Christ" that Augustine's portrait of Monica allows us to "reframe the masculine image of the divinity" (70) that is basic to Western Christianity. In her essay, Felecia McDuffie examines Augustine's rhetoric of the feminine in a literary and historic analysis of the Confessions and concludes that, since Augustine does include some aspects of the feminine, his postmodern daughters may enter into dialogue with him on this subject. "Confessing Monica," the joint work of Virginia Burrus and Catherine Keller, presents the Confessions as a meditation on Monica from a literary and historical and from a theological and exegetical perspective. In "O Mother, Where Art Thou? In Search of Saint Monnica," Rebecca Moore struggles to discover what we can really know about Monnica and comes up with a quite limited view of the facts we can known about Augustine's mother. The other unnamed, but not nameless woman in the Confessions is the topic of Margaret R. Miles's essay, subtitled "The Woman Torn from Augustine's Side." In "Augustine's Letters to Women," Joanne McWilliam surveys Augustine's letters written to women, which fall into the following groups: letters of condolence, letters of advice, letters on religious matters, and finally letters of theological content. She notes that the letters are not condescending or patronizing and even in some cases reveal considerable respect for the talents of the addressee. E. Ann Matter's essay, "De cura feminarum: Augustine the Bishop, North African Women, and the Development of a Theology of Female Nature," a brief essay with so long a title, finds that Augustine's letters to women show kindness and consideration for them and suggests that the women involved in the Pelagian controversy may have contributed to his later more negative views. Stark's essay, "Augustine on Women: In God's Image, but Less So," reviews the texts and current literature on Augustine's view of women as made in God's image in their rational souls, but inferior in terms of their bodies. In "To Remember Self, to Remember God: Augustine on Sexuality, Relationality, and the Trinity," Julie B. Miller attempts to explain his teaching on God and the Self as well as to offer "a feminist psychological critique of Augustine's early relationship with his mother," in an alternate view to that of "traditional non-Freudian analyses" (245). The final essay, "The Evanescence of Masculinity: Deferral in Saint Augustine's Confessions and Some Thoughts on Its Bearing on the Sex/Gender Debate," by Penelope Deutscher, explores "a by-product of the sex/gender debate, namely, [End Page 480] attempts by some authors to maintain a terminological distinction between the terms 'man' and 'masculine' and between 'woman' and 'feminine' (282). She argues that one can understand the opposition of such terms as theologically grounded in a particular sense. The closing poem, "To Aurelius Augustine from the Mother of His Son," by Ann Conrad Lammers...

Strategies of Resistance in the Dramatic Texts of North African Women: A Body of Words. By Laura Chakravarty Box. New York and London: Routledge, 2005; pp. xi+258. $84 cloth.

Strategies of Resistance in the Dramatic Texts of North African Women: A Body of Words. By Laura Chakravarty Box. New York and London: Routledge, 2005; pp. xi+258. $84 cloth.

Reconciling Arabo-Islamic culture and feminist consciousness in North African women's writing: Silence and voice in the short stories of Alifa Rifaat and Assia Djebar

This article sets out to explore the theme of silence and voice in selected short stories by two North African women writers, Alifa Rifaat and Assia Djebar. In their representations of women’s lives in Egypt and Algeria, respectively, both Rifaat and Djebar present different strategies employed by women to counter gender oppression. Although the female characters portrayed by both writers encounter diverse, and sometimes opposing, circumstances, they tend to share a common plight – the need to break free from the constricting fetters of patriarchy. A comparative reading of selected stories reveals that Rifaat’s characters resort to silence as a means of self-preservation, while Djebar’s characters, on the other hand, use techniques ranging from writing to outright protest to show their rejection of gender-based segregation. In spite of this difference in approach, it can be said that both Rifaat and Djebar have made a great contribution to feminist literary creativity in North Africa.

Book Review: North African Women in France: Gender, Culture, and Identity

Book Review: North African Women in France: Gender, Culture, and Identity

Book Review: North African Women in France: Gender, Culture, and Identity. By Caitlin Killian. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006, 279 pp., $21.95 (paper)

Book Review: North African Women in France: Gender, Culture, and Identity. By Caitlin Killian. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006, 279 pp., $21.95 (paper)

From a Community of Believers to an Islam of the Heart: "Conspicuous" Symbols, Muslim Practices, and the Privatization of Religion in France*

Based on interviews with North African women immigrants, this article examines how religious practices are constrained and the meaning of being a good is transformed in France. When Muslim women cannot celebrate religious holidays or pray five times a day, they instead focus on what is in one's heart, an adaptation to a country engaged in an ongoing battle to keep religion out of the public realm. While many immigrants affirm that Islam should be kept at home, in private, an increasing number of their children seek visible symbols of religious/ethnic identity, such as the headscarf, suggesting the emergence of generational differences in the experience of Islam in France. The new French law banning headscarves in schools is decried by some first generation women, but just as many support the law, including many older, religious women. This article compares American and French perspectives on the separation of church and state and questions the underlying motives behind the contemporary arguments about secularism in France.

Strategies of Resistance in the Dramatic Texts of North African Women: A Body of Words. By Laura Chakravarty Box. New York: Routledge, 2005. Pp. xi + 258. $75.00 Hb

<b><i>Strategies of Resistance in the Dramatic Texts of North African Women: A Body of Words</i></b>. By <b>Laura Chakravarty Box</b>. New York: Routledge, 2005. Pp. xi + 258. $75.00 Hb

“I'm Not an Immigrant!”: Resistance, Redefinition, and the Role of Resources in Identity Work

In this paper we examine the identity negotiation processes of North African immigrant women in France. Participants engaged in various forms of identity work, including selective association and management of appearance, as well as resisting others' attempts to categorize them as immigrants. Given that these women have chosen to move to France and remain there, this finding is surprising. Using the concept of the Not-Me identity, we explore how people can redefine and refuse labels that seem to be self-evident and to lack room for negotiation. At the same time, we examine how class and educational resources and other structural factors influence these immigrant women's ability to control others' perceptions of their identity.

BOOK REVIEW: Ed. Ernest N. Emenyonu. NEW WOMEN'S WRITING IN AFRICAN LITERATURE. African Literature 24. Oxford: James Trenton, NJ: Africa World P, 2004.

Reviewed by: New Women's Writing in African Literature Ezenwa-Ohaeto New Women's Writing in African Literature Ed. Ernest N. EmenyonuAfrican Literature 24. Oxford: James Currey; Trenton, NJ: Africa World P, 2004. 210 pp. £12.95. This is the first issue of the African Literature journal to be edited by Ernest Emenyonu. He took over from the well-respected Eldred Durosimi Jones who founded the journal about thirty-five years ago. It is therefore appropriate that this issue is dedicated to Eldred and Marjorie Jones in recognition of their labor. The journal formerly known as African Literature Today has certainly scored marks in the criticism of African literatures, especially through its policy in dedicating specific issues to themes and genres like the novel; poetry; criticism; drama; the links between Africa, America, and the Caribbean; myth and history; women in African literature; oral and written poetry; the question of Language; orature; critical theory; new trends and generations; childhood; and exile and Southern African literature. It is indeed a wide canvas that demonstrates the scope of current issues in African literatures. Emenyonu follows the precedent set by the former editor of African Literature Today no. 15 by widening the scope in this first issue he has edited, entitled New Women's Writing in African Literature. The editorial rightly stresses that "the rapid upsurge of writing by African women in the last two decades of the twentieth century was a most striking phenomenon in the development of modern African literature. It was not only apparent in the quantity and variety of output but also in the quality and craftsmanship of the writing. There have been remarkable innovative stylistic experimentations as well as thematic expansions into uncharted waters, alien domains and incursions into hitherto taboo subjects" (xi). The selection of articles in the present volume is continental in coverage and on female writers from Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), Cameroon, Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and of course South Africa. Unfortunately, there are no articles devoted to North African women writers, which could be a result of the problems associated with translating their works into English and the impediments arising from the poor distribution of books. But Emenyonu cannot be blamed, for an editor assesses only those articles submitted and, moreover, solicited articles may fail to get to the editor due to varied reasons. Nevertheless, New Women's Writing in African Literature is rich and it provides several interesting aspects that could be interrogated, assimilated, or appreciated. [End Page 139] Interestingly, the first essay is on the female poets from Northern Nigeria, an area that is often associated with the restrictions of the purdah tradition of Muslim culture. In this essay, Aderemi Raji-Oyelede in his survey of these female poets perceives their emergence as desert flowers. He discusses the poetry of Hannatu Abdullahi, Maria Ajima, Nana Ahmed, Binta Mohammed, Cecilia Kato, and Hauwa Sambo and arrives at a predictable conclusion. He observes that the main preoccupations of the poets include a romantic concern for the environment; celebration of motherhood, sisterhood, and womanhood; an unobtrusive critique of patriarchy and religion and representations of the vagaries of love. The primacy of love in these poems is unsurprising considering the fact that most fledgling poets commence with this theme. Raji-Oyelede concludes that aesthetically "much of the literary work from this region is marked by simple poetic diction, sometimes inventive and successful, and sometimes commonplace and uninspiring" (18). There is no doubt that the apt use of imagery enhances the writing of poetry, but then the harvest of a new generation of female poets from Northern Nigeria is just beginning and there is the hope that the desert flowers will bloom, multiply, and become attractive in their variety. Two essays by Femi Osofisan and Ijeoma Nwajiaku discuss the works of Akachi Ezeigbo in comparison with Promise Okekwe (Osofisan) and in comparison with Chinwe Okechukwu (Nwajiaku). Osofisan is fascinated by the industry and prolific nature of Ezeigbo and Okekwe in producing fiction against the background of economic destabilization and political woes of their country. He uses the trilogy produced by Akachi Ezeibgo to illustrate her attempts at creating credible heroines as counterpoints...

Preface

Preface Leslie Choquette As the new editor of French Colonial History, I am pleased to present this collection of essays representing the broad scholarly interests of members of the French Colonial Historical Society. The volume consists largely of papers delivered at the 31st annual meeting of the Society in Wolfville, Nova Scotia; however, it also reflects the Society's new policy of allowing members to submit articles to the journal not previously presented at one of our conferences. We hope that this more flexible policy will benefit members who are ready to publish their research but unable to attend a particular conference. The 11 essays that follow are divided by region and arranged in approximately chronological order within each region. The four essays on New France, France's first empire in North America, range from Thomas Peace's linguistic study of seventeenth-century terms for Native Americans to the presentation of the archaeology of Fort St. Joseph in Michigan by José Brandão and Michael Nassaney. Benoît Grenier and Jan Noel both focus on social history—Grenier on the often harmonious relations between habitants and resident seigneurs, Noel on the widespread participation of women in the fur trade. Noel's paper, which calls for a reexamination of earlier interpretations of women in New France, including her own, argues that female economic participation was the rule in preindustrial societies, such that economically active women in New France were simply part of the norm. The next four essays explore France's nineteenth- and twentieth-century empire in North Africa from the standpoint of both intellectual and social history. Mourad Ali-Khodja acquaints us with a lesser-known Orientalist Tocqueville who championed the colonization of Algeria, while Phillip Naylor analyzes the impact of a century of colonialism on the formation of Algerian intellectual Malek Bennabi. Christelle Taraud, [End Page vii] winner of the 2004 Heggoy Prize for her book La prostitution coloniale : Algérie, Tunisie, Maroc (1830-1962), and Sara Kimble consider aspects of the condition of North African women between the World Wars. Kimble elucidates the often Orientalist views of French feminists with regard to their Muslim counterparts, and Taraud describes the coercive system for regulating indigenous prostitution established in colonial Casablanca. In the third section, Marie Pineau-Salaün examines the problem of republican schooling in the colonial context of the Pacific island of New Caledonia; in the last, Reine-Claude Grondin and Armelle Mabon look at colonial ideas and peoples as they circulated within the metropolis. Grondin's essay discusses the reception of colonialist discourse in a rural French province, the Limousin, and Mabon's considers the fate of the 70,000 French colonial soldiers who were taken prisoner during World War II. I would like to thank the former editors of French Colonial History, Robert DuPlessis and Patricia Galloway, for their advice and counsel. I can only hope to emulate the high standard that they have set. I am also grateful to the authors, to the members of the editorial board for their work as referees, and to the staff of Michigan State University Press for their consistent helpfulness, patience with a neophyte, and efficiency. Leslie Choquette Assumption College Copyright © 2006 Michigan State University Press

ACTIVATING THE GENDER LOCAL Transnational Ideologies and ?Women's Culture? in Northern Sudan

In an era of privileging the transnational at the expense of local practices, what can be said about the state of Middle East and North African (MENA) gender and women's studies? Some of the tensions of this paper reflect the ambivalence of MENA women's studies toward modernist and postmodernist/postcolonial stances and methods, especially the attempt to link local ethnographies and transnational practices. In previous research I have been arguing for recognition of the political transformative potential of localized practices and the need for a grounding of the transnational and international in the local and the personal. I am especially interested in linking the sexual and intimate with the transnational. My study of gender and sexuality in Muslim northern Sudan underscores the coexistence of two transnational institutions: the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) and its affiliated Sudanese Women's Union (SWU); and the Islamist state as represented by the National Islamic Front (NIF) and its past and current incarnations (the Muslim Brotherhood [Ikhwan] and the Popular National Congress, respectively). These two sociopolitical institutions, the SCP and the NIF, are seemingly poles apart on the Sudanese political spectrum and in their relationships with women. The SCP is commonly characterized as progressive, secular, gender egalitarian, and modernist; the NIF as conservative, religious, oppressive to women, and traditionalist. In fact, both are modernist movements; neither is secular; neither is gender egalitarian. In

Profil de femmes victimes de violences conjugales

To define the profile of female victims of conjugal violence examined in the Legal Medicine emergency unit of the Hotel-Dieu hospital in Paris. A self-administered questionnaire with 15 questions was distributed to 100 victims. The 100 victims replied: 86 cases of violence took place usually in the home, 78 episodes of violence were multiple and complaints were rarely lodged after the first episodes. Mental and sexual violence were severe and unrecognized. Eighty women interviewed suffered from mental violence. In 43 cases, alcohol played a determining role in the onset of such violence. Female victims of conjugal violence do not have a specific profile. The law of silence persists, but the increase in the number of complaints from North African and African women is encouraging for the future.

On ne nat pas francophone, nomade et mditerranenne, on le devient: N'zid de Malika Mokaddem

In her latest novel, N'zid, Malika Mokeddem narrates the sea journey of a female protagonist, Nora, an amnesiac who is struggling to (re)gain self-knowledge. This solitary journey on the Mediterranean, however, turns into a project on a larger scale for the author. She sketches the figure of a francophone, multilingual, multicultural female character - who embraces all of her cultures (whether native or adopted) - who has refashioned a new marine form of nomadism out of the now defunct Saharan one, and who is aware of her own identity as deeply Mediterranean in the most inclusive (and almost ancient) sense of the term. The article explores these three dimensions of Nora, providing illuminating models for displaced North African women writers and characters as autonomous agents. This conforms to no previously established model, unhampered by frontiers, and, rather than victims, freely navigates from Bhabha's interstice to Deleuze's sleek space.

The Other Side of the Veil

The “headscarf affair,” Muslim girls wearing veils to school, has generated a storm of controversy in France. This study uses the headscarf affair to explore Muslim immigrant women's views of their place in French society and reveals that even those who disagree with French public opinion often invoke arguments that are more French than North African. Interviews with 41 North African women show that younger, well-educated women defend the headscarf as a matter of personal liberty and cultural expression. Older, poorly educated women either defend or reject the veil but never discuss the issue of secularism. In dismissing the veil, they rely on a different understanding of Muslim womanhood. A third group opposes the veil, arguing that the goal of school is integration. Respondents' answers are interpreted according to structural factors and cultural repertoires, both North African and French.

No more silencing the past: firstgeneration immigrant women as bricoleuses de mémoire in Parle mon fils parle à ta mère and Fatima ou les Algériennes au square by Leïla Sebbar

According to Gérard Noiriel, immigrants have almost no place in the national memory of France, which seems to deny that its colonial past is inextricably linked to its current situation regarding North African immigrants and their descendants. In Parle mon fils parle à ta mere (1985) and Fatima ou les Algériennes au square (1981), Leïla Sebbar places North African immigrant women at the forefront of her narratives. These women construct memory as bricolage, using bits and pieces from their past, and confer it as a legacy to their children, who in turn absorb it or reject it along with the influence of French culture. The women thus reweave unofficial history; this places them in the shadow of the official ‘grave-keepers’ of memory. In so doing, their places in the margins of society can be viewed as ‘radical spaces of openness’ rather than closed spaces of victimization.

Exile, Existentialism, and Identity in Emily Nasrallah's Flight Against Time

In 1995 Roger Allen stated that the focus of most Arabic language critical studies of the Arabic novel has been largely historical, national, or thematic. He points out, however, that to Western feminist critics, gender has been a central topic of interest for some time and is likely to continue to be (132). Indeed, writings by Middle Eastern and North African women have been the subject of numerous works by both Western and Eastern critics, most notably Miriam Cooke's War's Other Voices: Women Writers on the Lebanese Civil War (1988) and Evelyne Accad's Veil of Shame: The Role of Women in the Contemporary Fiction of North Africa and the Arab World (1978) and Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East (1990).

Mortality differentials among women: the Israel Longitudinal Mortality Study

The first aim of this study was to examine differentials in mortality among Israeli adult women with respect to ethnic origin, marital status, number of children and several measures of socio-economic status; the second was to compare mortality differentials among women with those found for Israeli men. Data are based on a linkage of records from a 20% sample of the 1983 census with the records of deaths occurring until the end of 1992. The study population includes 79,623 women and the number of deaths was 14,332. Measures of SES included education, number of rooms, household amenities and possession of a car. Results indicated higher mortality among women originating from North Africa compared with Asian and European women. Adjustment to SES eliminated the excess mortality among North African women and revealed a lower mortality of Asian women, relative to Europeans. Among women aged 45–69, substantial and consistent mortality differentials were evident for all SES indicators examined where mortality declined with improved socio-economic position. Mortality was related to women‘s childbearing history, with the highest mortality among childless women. Mortality differentials among women aged 70+ were generally narrower than those found for younger women. Gender differences in mortality differentials varied by the socio-demographic indicator and age.

Unveiling North African Women, Revisited: An Arab Feminist Critique of Orientalist Mentality in Visual Art and Ethnography

My interest in undertaking the study of images of Arab women in Western visual ethnography and art emerged from my own life experience. My identity as an Arab feminist having lived in different Eastern and Western communities has shaped my understanding and affected my observation in this research. As an Arab woman being observed in the first place, I am taking the role of the "outside"/inside' observer in this study. I am observing the observers and the observed, and both become the observed in my chosen study. I observe visual images of Arab women under the gaze of Western observers. Ethnographers, photographers, and artists become the observed under my investigation. Here again, visual images of Arab women are observed—in fact they only have been observed as objects, a result of their display as visual images by Western observers. Contemporary North African women, Assia Djebar, Houria Niati, and Leila Sebbar are observers who examine visual images of North African women that were painted by Western artists. In examining their works here, they in turn become the observed. Also I observe Elizabeth Fernea's visual ethnographic work on North African women. Fernea and her project become the observed in my research. Finally, I undertook the role of the observer in this study mainly in order to understand myself and identify my place in the society of other women and men. I introduce a cross‐cultural dialogue that will question the bipolar cultural boundaries in feminist and historiographic scholarship.

Assia Djebar’s Vaste est la prison: Platform for a New Space of Agency and Feminine Enunciation in Algeria

Assia Djebar's Vaste est la prison: Platform for a New Space of Agency and Feminine Enunciation in Algeria Valerie Orlando Assia Djebar may be defined as many things: activist, intellec­ tual, feminist, filmmaker, novelist, and historian. Winner of the prestigious 1996 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Djebar (along with Egypt's Nawal El Sadaawi) is one of the most influen­ tial North African women writers in the world. Djebar was born in Algeria during that country's nearly century-long battle for free­ dom from French colonization. That revolution culminated in 1954, creating an Algerian republic. However, even though some Algerian women unveiled themselves in various roles as freedom fighters (as documented in such works as Frantz Fanon's A Dying Colonialism), after the revolution many women of all classes found themselves being forced back into subservient roles, according to supposed Islamic tradition. Djebar, whose father taught French, was sent to school in France, and thus grew up with a sensibility closer to her French feminist counterparts, rather than to funda­ mentalist ideals. This international experience set the stage for Djebar's lifetime of activist struggle on behalf of subordinated Algerian women. From her early novels, La Soif (1958), Les Impatients (1958), and Les Enfants du nouveau monde (1962) to her most recent works, Djebar has offered her readers over thirty years of feminine ex­ ploration. This exploration most often encompasses the difficul­ ties of being a woman in the three phases of Algerian history: the colonial era, the revolutionary years (1954-62), and the post-inde­ pendence period (1962 to the present). However, regardless of the era, Djebar speaks out, demanding to define and to interpret women's roles in Algerian history, politics, and culture. These roles more often than not have been neglected due to women's lack of representation, voice, and presence in both Algerian and French annals of history. Djebar was originally trained as an historian, but while still a student, she determined that, in order to reach a wider audience, she would translate her research into fiction rather than use straight historical documentation. In and out of trouble with

A Problem with Headscarves

IN THE FALL OF 1989, three young North African immigrant women students in a French public secondary school insisted on wearing headscarves in class. In France, secularism in the schools is national policy, and the young women's insistence on keeping their heads covered in the classroom was locally interpreted as a religious challenge to academic regulations. They were suspended from school, but refused to return without the scarves. The incident gained national publicity, exciting a variety of passionate responses in support of the students and in support of the local school authorities. Eventually, the Socialist national minister of education ordered the students readmitted to class, prompting further debates about the capitulation of institutional authorities to fanaticism. In the public press, as well as in more specialized journals, the incident was known as l'affaire dufoulard: the affair of the headscarves, a discrete local problem that developed into a crisis of French national identity. In November 1993, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti's discussion of the original incident, Citizenship and Equality: The Place for Toleration, was published