pieds-noirs, mythes et origines

My Contemporary French Literature students just completed Un aller simple by Didier Van Cauwelaert, a novel which offers an intriguing approach to the questions of national identity, written homelands, nostalgia for the past, and the myths and fictions we create about ourselves. I have always appreciated the novel for the interesting counterpoint it offers to the writings of the Pieds-Noirs and the multiple myths of their pasts. The first of these myths pertains to the term "pied-noir" and its origins (consider Aziz and his name coming from the Ami 6). This site http://www.francparler.com/syntagme.php?id=337 gives an overview of the primary sources of the term. As Marie Cardinal says it, however, they were never Pieds-Noirs until they arrived in France. First an insult and eventually a badge of honor.

NeMLA: Between Present and Past

If you happen to be in the Montreal area April 9-11, consider attending my panels, Between Present and Past: Nostalgia in French Literature I and II, at the Northeast Modern Language Association annual conference. The schedules are as follows:

Saturday, April 10, 3:15-4:45 p.m.
Hotel Hilton Bonaventure, 13.15 Salon H
Between Present and Past: Nostalgia in Francophone Literature I
Chair: Magali Compan, College of William and Mary

• “Albert Camus: ‘Nostalg(ér)ies’ d’hier et d’aujourd’hui” Alek Toumi, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
• “Rewriting Ruins: Deconstructing the ‘Nostalgeric’ Attachment to the Homeland” Amy Hubbell, Kansas State University
• “Sur ma mère de Tahar Ben Jelloun: une expérience de la nostalgie” Mena Marotta, Università di Salerno and University of Maryland

 
Sunday, April 11, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.Hotel Hilton Bonaventure, 17.12 Salon E
Between Present and Past: Nostalgia in Francophone Literature II
Chair: Amy Hubbell, Kansas State University

• “Créolité: the Reaffirmation of Repressed Cultural Identity or Fabricated Nostalgia?” Sam Coombes, University of Edinburgh
• “Memories and Constructions of Brotherhood in Le dernier frère by Natacha Appanah” Magali Compan, College of William and Mary
• “Nostalgies de comptoir? India and Nostalgia in French Literature” Corinne François-Denève, University of Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
• “Moi, Jeanne Castille de Louisiane, and the Other Within” Monika Giacoppe, Ramapo College of New Jersey

Now back to writing my paper as I continue to struggle with ruins and how they destabilize nostalgia.

National Holocaust Museum

The expression of trauma for the Pieds-Noirs always seems to fall back to the trauma of the Holocaust, and perhaps Pied-Noir trauma pales in comparison. The foundational research on trauma, however, is the same. I am currently using Dylan Trigg's ideas on ruins as he analyzes the holocaust survivor's return to the camps and their impossible expression of being there, both before and again during the return. This photo is of an Eisenhower quote engraved on the outside wall of the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. (photo taken as "snowmageddon" was getting underway in February 2010).

France - Algeria: Visualising a (Post-)Colonial Relationship (via the UK)

We have just returned from a 10 day tour of the UK on our pilgrimage to the "Visualising the Franco-Algerian Relationship since 1954" conference at the University of Manchester and to some places of Doug's ancestors' pasts. I heartily thank Joe McGonagle and Ed Welch for inviting me to participate in this enriching day of study. Although the weather (which was apparently the most snow Britain had seen in 30 years) left some would-be participants stranded, the conference was well attended and my co-presenters gave great talks. My paper, “(Re)turning to Ruins: Pied-Noir Visual Returns to Algeria” went a bit long thanks to my technological endeavors, but I enjoyed writing and delivering the talk and realize I have more to write as I continue to struggle with Dylan Trigg's ideas on ruins in conjunction with my work on nostalgia.

Zineb Sedira was in attendance -- she's a friend of Nadira Laggoune who presented on contemporary Algerian art. Zineb, an internationally respected artist (mostly video and photo), enlightened my perspective on numerous issues related to the Français d'Algérie, and told the story of her photo (left) of the maison abandonnée. At an exhibition of her work she met two women who lived in this house which was apparently a school that their father directed during colonial years and later a maison de torture. The women could (quite understandably) not accept what had happened to their once home.