منصة إيفاد العلمية

Prof.Abdelghani Moussaoui

إرسال رسالة

التخصص: English Studies

الجامعة: The Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences Chouaib Doukkali El Jadida

النقاط:

17.5

معامل الإنتاج البحثي

الخبرات العلمية

An EFL Teacher and a Ph.D Researcher
An Editorial Board Member

الأبحاث المنشورة

Space as an ‘Imaginative Geography’ in Paul Bowles’ Let It Come Down

المجلة: Innovations Journal of Humanities & Social Studies

سنة النشر: 2023

تاريخ النشر: 2023-12-07

Within the framework of orientalist discourse, this paper examines the politics of spatial construction of Morocco in Paul Bowles’ Let It Come Down. It uncovers how such construction, as a marker of difference, is designed to exoticize and primitivize the Moroccan ‘Other’. Bowles’ travel account is worthy of study by virtue of circulating orientalist stereotypes about Morocco. This paper adopts the postcolonial theory. After the analysis of the opted account, it was found that Bowles contributed to the construction of the Moroccan landscape as an ‘imaginative geography’. Morocco is represented as a ‘strange’, ‘mysterious’, and ‘esoteric’ space; it’s representationally constructed in the mode Edward Said referred to as ‘Orientalism’. The imaginative geography of Morocco as ‘exotic,’ ‘dangerous,’ and ‘dirty’ are only tools used by the writer to legitimize the colonial occupation. Bowles’ Let It Come Down remains an order of discourse which aims to ‘orientalize’ Morocco.

On the Racialization of the Moroccan ‘Other’ in Orientalist Romance

المجلة: International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

سنة النشر: 2024

تاريخ النشر: 2024-05-06

This paper offers an understanding of the discourse of difference in relation to the themes of race and identity in Rebecca Stratton’s bestselling romance The Silken Cage. It unravels how Morocco, as a subject and a culture, is racialized in British orientalist romance to underpin the discourse of the centre/periphery duality in cross-cultural encounters. The Silken Cage is worthy of study due to its interest in how the Moroccan ‘Other’ is turned into a commodity in popular romance. After a postcolonial analysis of the suggested romance, it was found that racial conceptions of the Moroccan Other’s identity are at large contingent on racial hierarchies. The novel seems, at first glance, to negotiate the construction of racial identities and thereby dismantle the system of binarism between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other.’ However, the author’s emphasis on the ambivalence of the oriental subjects articulates a continued need for racial sameness and the denial of difference. Needless to say, given that racial hybridity is a prerequisite for the courtship to be successful reveals that Stratton resists cross-cultural difference. It can be thus argued that Stratton’s romance is an interracial ground where racial differences are not welcomed to legitimize Western hegemony and domination over the Orient.

Race as a ‘Sign of Difference’ in Romance Discourse

المجلة: Journal of Applied Language & Culture Studies

سنة النشر: 2024

تاريخ النشر: 2024-07-01

With the emergence of postcolonial criticism, a big deal of interest was allotted to attack male agents of Orientalism, ignoring in turn Western women’s role in the imperial project. Within the framework of orientalist discourse, this paper examines the politics of racial construction in Rebecca Stratton’s imperial romance The Silken Cage. It uncovers how such construction is based on the myth of racial differences to inferiorize and primitivize the Moroccan ‘Other’. Stratton’s novel is worthy of examination due to its commercialization of the Moroccan men and women in the literary tradition. This paper adopts a postcolonial approach. After the analysis of the suggested novel, it was found that, like other male imperial writers, Stratton participates in the racial construction of the Moroccan ‘Other’ as an antithesis of the Western ‘subjects.’ The ‘white’ heroine is constructed at the top level of human categorization, and the Moroccan ‘black’ man and woman come at the bottom. The skin color is the core issue of racial differences between the Western ‘Self’ and the oriental ‘Other’. Stratton’s imperial romance, The Silken Cage, is then a significant aspect of “culture industry”, which aims to articulate the ‘eternal’ superiority of the Western race and the inferiority of other races. It is an order of discourse which legitimizes the Westerner’s sense of duty to ‘civilize’, ‘enlighten’, and ‘modernize’ the different cultural ‘Other’.

The Poetics of Spatial Representations of Casablanca in Postcolonial Moroccan Cinema

المجلة: CEOS Publishing

سنة النشر: 2024

تاريخ النشر: 2024-05-23

Casablanca, a Moroccan city, has recently attained a big deal of attention by both Moroccan and international cinema. It is noteworthy that the city and cinema are inextricably intertwined and inseparable. Within the framework of orientalist discourse, this paper examines how the city of Casablanca is spatially represented by postcolonial filmmakers. It seeks to unravel the dystopian and utopian visions of the city in Abdalkader Lagtaa’s Bidauoa (1998) and Mustapha Darkaoui’s Casablanca Day Light (2004). The proposed corpus is worthy of study by virtue of featuring the social paradoxes of the urban space of Casablanca and how these paradoxes are delineated and interpreted by Moroccan postcolonial filmmakers. This paper adopts a postcolonial theory. After the analysis of the selected films, it was found that Casablanca has been multiply represented as an Islamic and a fundamentalist city. Both films reveal that Casablanca is a dangerous place where innocent children and adults are turned into programmed bombs by the extremists. Casablanca is also represented as a place of fear due to fundamentalism. Interestingly, the two films about Casablanca superimpose the utopian space upon the dystopian space. Given the fact the dystopian space does not meet the subjects’ expectations, the utopian space (i.e., dreams and fantasies) becomes an alternative for individuals to escape the daily life of the city. Casablanca has been, then, the core issue of postcolonial cinema owing to its multi-layered spaces.

Gender as a ‘Discursive Practice’ in Romance Discourse

المجلة: International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

سنة النشر: 2024

تاريخ النشر: 2024-07-24

This paper calls into question the cultural discourse behind writing and reading popular romances in the Western sphere. Within the framework of orientalist discourse, this paper examines the trope of gender construction in Rebecca Stratton’s The Silken Cage. It unveils Western female writers’ complicity, Stratton as a prototype, in the perpetuation of orientalist discourse through gendering the oriental ‘Other’. Stratton’s romance is worthy of scrutiny by virtue of displaying how gender colors the hegemonic discourse of representation. This paper is indebted to the postcolonial theory. After the analysis of the chosen account, it was inferred that Rebecca Stratton partakes in the replication of the orientalist ideas and images that have been already propagated by ‘white’ male writers about the gendered Moroccan ‘Other’. ‘Harem’ is presented in The Silken Cage as an arena where these gender misrepresentations about Morocco, as a subject and a culture, are articulated. Notably, Stratton’s mode of representation is marked by ‘ambivalence’; given its racist discourse, the novel sways between relegating and praising the ‘Other’. Stratton’s romance as a manifestation of a cultural potentiality deserves to be examined due to its location within the framework of distinctiveness between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’.

The Discursive Formation of Ethnic Subjectivities and Identities in Popular Romance

المجلة: International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

سنة النشر: 2024

تاريخ النشر: 2024-08-01

Within the framework of postcolonial studies, this paper undertakes to examine the politics of ethnic subjectivities and identities in Rebecca Stratton’s popular romance The Silken Cage. It lays bare how ‘blackness’, as an identity marker of ethnic difference, carries social and political meanings in British popular romance. This paper challenges the commonly held view of ‘skin colour’ as a mere biological feature without deeming factors and forces that have informed its conception and hence have constructed it in a number of ways. The suggested romance is worthy of study by virtue of its concern with the notion of ‘blackness’ in the colonial context. A postcolonial analysis of The Silken Cage revealed that ‘black’ subjectivity and identity are constructs that have been shaped and reshaped by historical, social, linguistic, discursive, ideological, and political dynamics. The paper also showed that Stratton’s popular narrative is an order of discourse wherein ‘blackness’ is more than a matter of pigmentation; it is a mark/mask, a uniform, a signifier, a fetish with a whole range of significance and implications. Colonialism, racial segregation, and captivity are some racist practices exploited by the writer to inscribe ethnic subjectivities and identities in the cross-cultural encounter. ‘Blackness’, in this sense, is a political, social, and ideological construct.

Book of Abstracts of the II International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences

المجلة: CEOS Publishing

سنة النشر: 2023

تاريخ النشر: 2023-12-06