Performative Pasts

Performative Pasts rethinks concepts of transnational memory from a gendered perspective in relation to French-language narratives from Algeria and France since 1962. The book's focus on 'performativity' links theoretical perspectives on gender to the 'performative turn' in memory studies. This approach provides new readings of French-language works of literature, film, and theatre by five writers (some canonical, others overlooked): Assia Djebar, Hélène Cixous, Ahmed Kalouaz, Malika Mokeddem, and Nina Bouraoui. The book reappraises both the 'connective' representation of disparate pasts and the reproduction of gendered imaginaries in the present.