Time Signatures: Contextualizing Contemporary Francophone Autobiographical Writing from the Maghreb

by Alison Rice University of Notre Dame

Overview

Time Signatures engages in a close study of the autobiographical writings of three contemporary Francophone writers from the Maghreb: Assia Djebar, Hélène Cixous, and Abdelkébir Khatibi. Alluding to music not only as a "theme" pulsing throughout these writers' works, but also as a means of comprehending their unique, improvisational writing styles, Alison Rice offers readers a new and beautifully constructed way of reading these authors' texts by demonstrating that the form adopted to address topics of concern is as significant as the content itself. The voice of Jacques Derrida intermingles with the timbres of these three writers in fruitful contrapuntal passages, serving as a source of inspiration for conceptualizing language and communicating the self in an unprecedented manner. Time Signatures demonstrates that these individuals write the "self" in French in ways influenced by sensitivities acquired during their early experiences in a multicultural, multilingual "colonial" environment in which their ears were trained, and their minds tuned, for translations to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739112892
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	03/30/2006
Series:	After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France
Pages:	358
Product dimensions:	6.46(w) x 9.26(h) x 1.33(d)

About the Author

Alison Rice is Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University for Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Overture: Francophony? Legitimacy, Authenticity, and Integrity in French Literature Chapter 2 NameStakes: Putting the Proper Name into Textual Play Part 3 Assia Djebar Chapter 4 Religio: Re-thinking and Re-linking Cultural and Religious Tradition Chapter 5 Histoire à Contretemps: Syncopated Histories: Writing on the Off-Beat Part 6 Hélène Cixous Chapter 7 Settling the Musical Score: Orality, Rhythm, and Repetition in Writing Wrongs Chapter 8 Prelude to a Fugue, Out of North Africa: Uprooting and Rerouting in Autobiographical Fiction Part 9 Abdelkébir Khatibi Chapter 10 French Transcriptions, French Transpositions: Transportation, Transnation, and Transliteration Chapter 11 Silence and Schizophrenia: Subtle Slips of the Tongue Chapter 12 Nothing to Declare: Crossing the Border from Confession to Testimony

Editorial Reviews

Alison Rice's Time Signatures is an original, well-researched and strongly argued work on the structural relationship between Francophone autobiographical writings and music. It constitutes a significant contribution to Francophone Studies and opens a new direction in the field.

Hafid Gafaïti

Alison Rice's Time Signatures is an original, well-researched and strongly argued work on the structural relationship between Francophone autobiographical writings and music. It constitutes a significant contribution to Francophone Studies and opens a new direction in the field.--Hafid Gafaïti, Texas Tech University

From the Publisher

Alison Rice's Time Signatures is an original, well-researched and strongly argued work on the structural relationship between Francophone autobiographical writings and music. It constitutes a significant contribution to Francophone Studies and opens a new direction in the field.

Hafid Gafaïti