Illegible Subjects: Jewish Women, Writing, and the Performance of Identity in the Colonial Maghreb

FAIN: FT-291708-23

Edwige Crucifix
Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2859)

Research and writing leading to a book on the French-language writings of North African Jewish women during the French colonial period (1830-1962).

Bringing together literary works and archival material, Illegible Subjects studies how Jewish women saw and presented themselves in the colonial Maghreb. The book chronicles the emergence of female Francophone literature while challenging contemporary theories of postcoloniality. It will therefore not only contribute to our material understanding of French colonial history but also offer an alternative conception of identity in which the conscious and playful destruction of cultural categories, not merely their re-appropriation, forms the basis for liberation. Maghrebi Jewish women, a group ostensibly defined by its overcategorization, in fact reckoned with imperialism by combatting categorization, fighting for a right to not be clearly identified, to remain in fact “illegible”. I use this key example to construct a novel understanding of identity bearing on contemporary issues in “Frenchness”, from virulent debates around the veil to the rise of the far-right Rassemblement National.