| The aim of my dissertation is to investigate the ways in which Arab Francophone writers express their opposition to the rise of religious fundamentalism. This alarming trend has been in the making for more than two decades and is related to multiple historical and political causes, of which the Cold War is not the least important. The absence of diverse political parties, ideologies, or even genuine alternative discourses in the Arab countries has only bolstered the development of fundamentalism. Meanwhile, in the West, little effort has been made to encourage the consideration of the East as an equal, albeit different, entity. Efforts toward establishing a real dialogue with it have likewise been less than satisfactory. Despite the emergence of postcolonial studies and related scholarly endeavors, the fracture between East and West has only continued to widen.;The thesis focuses on the novels of three authors from three Arab countries: a Lebanese (Amine Maalouf), an Algerian (Rachid Boudjedra) and a Moroccan (Fouad Laroui). My project analyzes the complex and different axes along which these authors articulate their discursive engagement in a dual struggle. On the one hand, they work to revise and challenge the West's oversimplifying description of the East and on the other hand, they strive to produce a counter-discourse in response to the typically irrational and intolerant discourses deployed by religious fundamentalists. It is for these reasons that their work addresses the Oriental reader in an attempt to counterbalance different kinds of violence expressed in the Arab world, while also calling out to Western readers whose notions of the Orient are often shaped by reductionist and essentialist understandings of the region. |
