FREN 089. Queer Maghreb

This advanced course will explore the ways in which literary, visual and cultural representations of sexual difference and gender roles disrupt the cultural imagination of everyday life in North Africa and its Diasporas in France. Special attention will be given to representations of Arab women and queer subjectivities as sites of resistance against dominant masculinity. We will analyze the ways in which representations of gender have allowed for a redeployment of power, a reconfiguration of politics of resistance, and the redrawing of longstanding images of Islam in France. Finally, we will question how creations in French that straddle competing cultural traditions, memories, and material conditions can queer citizenship. In French.

This advanced course (along with an optional Spring attachment) is suitable as an Honors preparation. Eligible for BLST and GSST.

Advanced content course or instructor’s approval.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Eligible for BLST, GSST
Fall 2026. Gueydan-Turek.
Catalog chapter: Modern Languages and Literatures: French and Francophone Studies
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/french-francophone-studies

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