Foundering men, thriving women [Ressource électronique] : gender, politics, and the crisis of masculinity in Haiti and Algeria / Sharon Meilahn Bartlett

Ph. D. : French and Francophone world studies : University of Iowa : 2009

This dissertation examines the gender politics undergirding representations of political crisis in a corpus of texts that engages two postcolonial Francophone cultures, Haiti and Algeria. It analyzes films and novels produced in Haiti and Algeria in one of four time periods: the Duvalier dictatorships in Haiti (1957-1986), the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962), Jean-Bertrand Aristide's rise and fall from the Haitian presidency (1990-2004),1 and Algeria's civil war (1992-1999).2 As the political conflicts that define each period intensify in the two countries, they provoke economic and social dislocations that then produce a similar crisis of masculinity for both Haitian and Algerian men. While men are immobilized by economic disenfranchisement, alienation from their roles as providers and fathers, and the mounting threat of physical violence from nationalist forces, women adapt more easily to these challenges and emerge empowered by new forms of agency.

Bibliogr. p. 246-256