Description
Book SynopsisFifty years after Algerian independence, the legacy of France's Algerian past, and the ongoing complexities of the Franco-Algerian relationship, remain a key preoccupation in both countries. A central role in shaping understanding of their shared past and present is played by visual culture. This study investigates how relations between France and Algeria have been represented and contested through visual means since the outbreak of the Algerian War in 1954. It probes the contours of colonial and postcolonial visual culture in both countries, highlighting the important roles played by still and moving images when Franco-Algerian relations are imagined. Analysing a wide range of images made on both sides of the Mediterranean – from colonial picture postcards of French Algeria to contemporary representations of postcolonial Algiers – this new book is the first to trace the circulation of, and connections between, a diverse range of images and media within this field of visual culture. It shows how the visual representation of Franco-Algerian links informs our understanding both of the lived experience of postcoloniality within Europe and the Maghreb, and of wider contemporary geopolitics.
Trade ReviewContesting Views is an incisive and timely analysis of visual culture and its role in the mediation of Franco-Algerian relations, and makes a convincing case for the importance of visual image and visual forms in considering the postcoloniality of both France and Algeria.
James House, University of LeedsContesting Views is a meticulously researched work, brimming with relevant references to a range of secondary literature on Franco-Algerian relations, and one which also demonstrates a welcome gendered awareness of female invisibility in many of the images discussed. This insightful and wide-ranging study recognizes the significant and, until now, underrepresented role played by the visual in informing pre- and post-colonial views of Franco-Algerian relations, and will thus appeal to both general and specialist readers with an interest in such relations, and in visual culture as a whole.
Siobhan McIlvanney, Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial StudiesTable of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Visualising the Franco-Algerian Relationship
- Part One. Algerian Pasts in the French Public Sphere
- 1. Wish We Were There: Nostalgic (Re)visions of France’s Algerian Past
- 2. Visions of History: Looking Back at the Algerian War
- 3. Out of the Shadows: The Visual Career of 17 October 1961
- Part Two. Mapping Franco-Algerian Borders in Contemporary Visual Culture
- 4. War Child: Memory, Childhood and Algerian Pasts in Recent French Film
- 5. Bridging the Gap: Representations of the Mediterranean Sea
- 6. A Sense of Place: Envisioning Post-Colonial Space in France and Algeria
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
