Contemporary Feminist Art by Women in North Africa - (After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial Fra) by Ramona Mielusel (Hardcover)

About the Book

Contemporary Feminist Art by Women in North Africa examines perceptions of the female body as both a subject and an object of aesthetic discourse in the works of six contemporary Maghrebi female artists. The book includes discussions of several artistic mediums including photo...

Book Synopsis

Contemporary Feminist Art by Women in North Africa: Body Talks dissects the diverse perceptions of the body and how it becomes symbolically charged in the artwork of six contemporary Maghrebi female artists: Majida Khattari, Lalla Essaydi, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Déborah Benzaquen, Fatima Mazmouz and Zaïnab Fasiki. With a focus on the French, Maghrebi, and North American market and examining artistic mediums ranging from painting and photography to videos and installations, Ramona Mielusel highlights how the body functions as both subject and object of aesthetic discourse. The author denotes these artistic works as the intersection of the intimate and the impersonal, of the individual perception and the communitarian and societal view, without promoting a fixed notion of the body in a specific spatiality and temporality. This book explores the work of female Maghrebi artists and their intentional framing of the body's duality between the symbolic and the real, between cultural interpretation of the body in literature and the actual perception of the body.

Review Quotes

"Contemporary Feminist Art by Women in North Africa is a valuable inquiry into the vital forces at the heart of some of the most bold and compelling works in the Maghreb today. Mielusel's focus on the body, and on its multiple forms of symbolic representation, forges productive connections between aesthetics and culture, placing women at the center of a vibrant cultural moment." --Claudia Esposito, University of Massachusetts, Boston

About the Author

Ramona Mielusel is associate professor of French and francophone studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.