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The Body in Francophone Literature: Historical, Thematic and Aesthetic Perspectives
The Body in Francophone Literature Historical Thematic and Aesthetic Perspectives Author:El Hadji Malick Ndiaye Much of Francophone literature is a response to an elaborate discourse that served to bolster colonial French notions of national grandeur and to justify expansion of French territories overseas. A form of colonial exoticism saw the colonized subject as a physical, cultural, aesthetic and even sexual singularity. Francophone writers sought to re... more »habilitate the status of non-Western peoples who, through the use of anthropometric techniques, had been racially classified as inferior or primitive.
Drawing on various Francophone texts, this collection of new essays offers a compelling study of the literary body--both corporeal and figurative. Topics include the embodiment of diasporic identity, the body politic in prison writing, women's bodies, and the body's expression of trauma inflicted by genocidal violence.« less