French 262 - AFTER ALGERIA: REV,RPBLC, RACE

For the last two centuries, one could argue that it is the Franco-Algerian relationship that has been decisive in the construction of modern France. From the colonial conquest in the early nineteenth century through independence in 1962, Algeria has evoked passions on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, passions frequently resulting in violence that has not entirely subsided. Memory of a conflictual present and past has required continual mediation among involved actors. In the fifty years that have passed since Algerian independence, France and the French have increasingly confronted echoes of the colonial past as a result of pervasive debates around immigration, multiculturalism and national identity. We will explore a post-Algerian French society seemingly marked permanently by its Algerian experience through a variety of perspectives and readings. Can a late twentieth-century discourse of socio-economic, cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, all shaped by the Algerian episode, be reconciled with republican norms? To what extent has the experience in/of Algeria transformed contemporary French culture? In what ways can one speak of the Algerian experience in revolutionary terms?