Algeria Cuts Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present [Paperback]

Algeria Cutsdiscusses the figure of woman, both under colonial rule in Algeria and within the postcolonial independent nation-state. It is an interdisciplinary project that spans fine art, film, colonial and legal policy, manifestos, prose fiction, and theoretical and philosophical texts concerning the relationship between France and Algeria. Khanna investigates gendered representation, identification, and justice, and in the process, calls into question the ways in which conventional disciplinary frameworks foreclose certain avenues of reflection while foregrounding others.Algeria Cutsseeks to understand Algeria and Algerian women as a philosophical site that facilitates an understanding of justice and the pursuit of feminism.Algeria Cutsdiscusses the figure of woman under colonial rule in Algeria as well as within the postcolonial independent nation-state through an interdisciplinary framework that spans fine art, film, colonial and legal policy, manifestoes, prose fiction, and theoretical and philosophical texts concerning the relationship between France and Algeria.Ranjana Khanna is Associate Professor of English and Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women's Studies at Duke University. She is the author ofDark Continents: Psychoanalysis and Colonialism(2003). In this multidisciplinary book, Khanna describes the ways in which women have been represented in Algerian history, from the onset of French colonialism in 1830 until today Khanna knows the history, relates it engagingly, and describes human events movingly. Brilliantly argued and powerfully written,Algeria Cutsalso benefits from a generous thirty images, an enigmatic cover by Zineb Sedira, and fifty pages of meticulous footnotes. It is a beautiful book as well as an urgent one, and a massive contribution to the postcolonial field, as well as to the emerging area of Algerian cultural studies. Algeria Cutsis a timely and challenging reflection on how women elude ls8