Re-hybridizing Transnational Domesticity and Femininity: Women's Contemporary Filmmaking and Lifewriting in France, Algeria, and Tunisia (After the Empire: Francophone World and Postcolonial France)

Re-hybridizing Transnational Domesticity and Femininity examines the problems of voicing the personal when considering the role and place of women in the home. Analyzing a collection of first-person cinematic and literary narratives by Assia Djebar, Annie Ernaux, Simone de Beauvoir, Raja Amari, Coline Serreau, Leïla Sebbar, and Yamina Benguigui; Weber-Fève explores the transnational processes of identity formation, gender performance, and construction of culture and society. Through a closer look at contemporary representations of French, Algerian, and Tunisian women on the page and on the screen, this study discusses the ways in which homemaking, nation, and gender are intricately bound to one another and situated in personal history.Working within, as well as beyond, so-called national systems of visual and written representation, these women artists challenge inherited and monolithic performances, definitions, and discourses of femininity. In doing so, they create re-hybridized subjects that begin to recognize and embrace the differences within themselves. The authors and filmmakers in this study-through their female protagonists, the protagonists' homes and homemaking acts, and the investigative lens of the interrogation of the personal-are interested in exploring how the process of uncovering or articulating new and "other" identities and subjectivities ushers in new and "re-hybridized" ways of seeing, knowing, and being female. Re-hybridizing Transnational Domesticity and Femininity examines the problems of voicing the personal when considering the role and place of women in the home. Analyzing a collection of first-person cinematic and literary narratives by Assia Djebar,Annie Ernaux, Simone de Beauvoir, Raja Amari, Coline Serreau, Leïla Sebbar, and Yamina Benguigui; Weber-Fève explores the transnational processes of identity formation, gender performance, and construction of culture and society. Through a closer look atcontemporary representations of French, Algerian, and Tunisian women on the page and on the screen, this study discusses the ways in which homemaking, nation, and gender are intricately bound to one another and situated in personal history. Working within, as well as beyond, so-called national systems of visual and written representation, these women artists challenge inherited and monolithic performances, definitions, and discourses of femininity. In doing so, they create re-hybridized subjects that begin to recognize and embrace the differences within themselves. The authors and filmmakers in this study-through their female protagonists, the protagonists' homes and homemaking acts, and the investigative lens of the interrogation of the personal-are interested in exploring how the process of uncovering or articulating new and "other" identities and subjectivities ushers in new and "re-hybridized" ways of seeing, knowing, and being female. This book examines the problems of voicing the personal when considering the role and place of women in the home. Analyzing a collection of first-person cinematic and literary narratives by Assia Djebar, Annie Ernaux, Simone de Beauvoir, Raja Amari, Coline Serreau, Lela Sebbar, and Yamina Benguigui, it explores the transnational processes of identity formation, gender performance, and construction of culture and society. Through a closer look at contemporary representations of French, Algerian, and Tunisian women on the page and on the screen, this book describes the ways in which homemaking nation, and gender are intricately bound to one another and situated in personal history Introduction: interrogating and re-hybridizing the personal -- Making home with Assia Djebar: destablizing the center(s) -- (Re)displaying femininity and home with Annie Ernaux and Simone de Beauvoir -- Creating domestic landscapes and soundscapes with Raja Amari and Coline Serreau -- (Re)presenting female iconography at home with Leïla Sebbar and Yamina Benguigui