Barbarology or a new theory of exile and identity. A study of exile, writing, and resistance in two Algerian novels: 'Vaste est la Prison' by Assia Djebar and 'Un Passager de l'Occident' by Nabile Fares

This dissertation is both a theoretical proposal about exile and identity and an engaged reading of novels by Assia Djebar and Nabile Fares. The gist of my argument is that Djebar and Fares bring together the specificities of the Algerian---and more generally the francophone---writer's experience, an experience especially shot through with conflicting responsibilities to oneself and to others due to historical and material factors. Thus both writers use and then grapple with the novel form to express personal issues vis-a-vis language and the world even as they tackle the sometimes-self-anointed role of representing a community or gender, a role that is often linked to or projected as a collective history.; This project gains its value and specificity as Barbarology. I call this project Barbarology as a theoretical play on "Barbarian" and "Berber," and for some immanent reasons. I maintain that the Berber cultural experience, which is one of resistance, resilience and exile, and grounded as it is in the history of the region and the linguistic experience---French, Arabic, Tamazight, Spanish, etc---is the basis for a theory of late modernity and literature which exceeds the bounds of, say, Gilroy's "Black Atlantic" thesis. The Berber experience is one of both sedentary and nomadic existence, and it is a lived culture, which persists, despite many pressures. And, given the Berber presence in the African continent, Barbarology brings together the ancient trade routes and cultures of all of Africa (cf. the Touareg of Mali and Niger), and North Africa (including Egypt). Barbarology captures the ebbs and flows of Capitalism and challenges the essentialism and conservatism of other models of post colonialism. Finally, given the failure of the federal model of government (as in Algeria), Barbarology offers a dialectical notion of a new nation, which is rooted and theorized in the literary imagination of writers such as Fares (and then Tahar Djaout, Kateb Yacine, and many others).