Professor Jill Jarvis [afikra Conversations]
Jill Jarvis talked about the aesthetics and politics of North Africa and her book “Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony.”
Jill Jarvis specializes in the aesthetics and politics of North Africa. Her forthcoming book, Decolonizing Memory : Algeria and the Politics of Testimony, brings together close readings of fiction with analyses of juridical, theoretical, and activist texts to illuminate both the nature of violence and the stakes of literary study in a time of unfinished decolonization. She is also at work on a second book project, Signs in the Desert: An Aesthetic Cartography of the Sahara, which envisions the Sahara as a site of material, intellectual, and linguistic exchanges that challenge both disciplinary boundaries and received notions of African studies. Other work appears in New Literary History, PMLA, The Journal of North African Studies, and Expressions maghébrines. In her teaching as well as her research, she is dedicated to questioning the assumptions of area studies and methodological orthodoxies. Her work centers the aesthetic and the literary, making the case for literature as constitutive—rather than simply reflective—of political agency.
About the afikra Conversations
Our long-form interview series features academics, arts, and media experts who are helping document and/or shape the history and culture of the Arab world through their work. Our hope is that by having the guest share their expertise and story, the community still walks away with newfound curiosity - and maybe some good recommendations about new nerdy rabbit holes to dive into headfirst. Following the interview, there is a moderated town-hall-style Q&A with questions coming from the live virtual audience on Zoom. Join the live audience: https://www.afikra.com/rsvp
