Book description
Examined within their economic, cultural, and political context, the
work of women Maghrebi filmmakers forms a cohesive body of work.
Florence Martin examines the intersections of nation and gender in
seven films, showing how directors turn around the politics of the
gaze as they play with the various meanings of the Arabic term hijab
(veil, curtain, screen). Martin analyzes these films on their own
theoretical terms, developing the notion of "transvergence"
to examine how Maghrebi women's cinema is flexible, playful, and
transgressive in its themes, aesthetics, narratives, and modes of
address. These are distinctive films that traverse multiple cultures,
both borrowing from and resisting the discourses these cultures propose.
"This book inscribes a new chapter in women filmmaking on the
Maghreb; it makes an important contribution to cinema, literature, and
cultural studies.... Highly recommended." -Choice
Florence Martin is Professor of French and Francophone Literature
and Cinema at Goucher College and Associate Editor of Studies in
French Cinema. She is author of Bessie Smith, of De la Guyane à la
diaspora africaine (with Isabelle Favre), and of A vous de voir! (with
Maryse Fauvel and Stéphanie Martin).
