{"title":"Humor, love, and universalism: A “happy ending” for undocumented migrants in\u0000 Samba\u0000 (2014)?","authors":"Siham Bouamer","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.25","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45923634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Research on apostasy has previously focused on leaving Christianity, and to some extent Judaism and New Religious Movements (so called “cults”), in the North-Atlantic hemisphere. In addition, most previous studies have been conducted in an English-speaking context, thus excluding possible insights from other linguistic and cultural contexts. More recent theoretical developments in apostasy research questions the linear understanding of the process of leaving religion (i.e. switching from one religion to another religious or non-religious position). In this essay, which serves as an afterword to this special issue, I argue that if we want to further our understanding of the lived experiences of former Muslims, we need to theoretically develop how the autobiographical story functions as narrative, where we locate agency in the narrative analysis, and how we can better understand the dynamics between the apostate, their former religious group, and the societal context in which apostasy takes place. In addition, in line with the contributions to this special issue, we must be attentive to the colonial legacies that affect the perception of Islam in many European countries.
{"title":"Afterword: narrating ex-Muslim lived experiences","authors":"Daniel Enstedt","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.14","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Research on apostasy has previously focused on leaving Christianity, and to some extent Judaism and New Religious Movements (so called “cults”), in the North-Atlantic hemisphere. In addition, most previous studies have been conducted in an English-speaking context, thus excluding possible insights from other linguistic and cultural contexts. More recent theoretical developments in apostasy research questions the linear understanding of the process of leaving religion (i.e. switching from one religion to another religious or non-religious position). In this essay, which serves as an afterword to this special issue, I argue that if we want to further our understanding of the lived experiences of former Muslims, we need to theoretically develop how the autobiographical story functions as narrative, where we locate agency in the narrative analysis, and how we can better understand the dynamics between the apostate, their former religious group, and the societal context in which apostasy takes place. In addition, in line with the contributions to this special issue, we must be attentive to the colonial legacies that affect the perception of Islam in many European countries.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49669428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: contextualizing apostasy and “ex-Muslims” in France and North Africa","authors":"A. Bharat, Joseph Ford","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47608481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the past few years, a number of individuals have begun using YouTube as a platform to document their transition from being Muslim to being ex-Muslims. This article examines the “coming-out” narratives of self-described ex-Muslims in France. Generally speaking, two main types of videos exist: narratives of transition from Islam to atheism and narratives of religious conversion from Islam to Christianity. There are few differences between these two main types. Both narrative types are inherently political, intersecting significantly with broader Islamophobic and secularist-nationalist discourses in France. Drawing on a thematic analysis of several YouTube videos, within the relevant historical and sociopolitical contexts of France, this article argues that public declarations of apostasy from Islam in France (as narratives of salvation embracing the promise of modernity, while critiquing the supposedly inherent backwardness of Islam) are engaged in a particular mode of subjectivation that cannot be understood outside of the ontological afterlives of colonialism.
{"title":"Race, religion, and coloniality: ex-Muslim “coming-out” narratives in France","authors":"A. Bharat","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.10","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the past few years, a number of individuals have begun using YouTube as a platform to document their transition from being Muslim to being ex-Muslims. This article examines the “coming-out” narratives of self-described ex-Muslims in France. Generally speaking, two main types of videos exist: narratives of transition from Islam to atheism and narratives of religious conversion from Islam to Christianity. There are few differences between these two main types. Both narrative types are inherently political, intersecting significantly with broader Islamophobic and secularist-nationalist discourses in France. Drawing on a thematic analysis of several YouTube videos, within the relevant historical and sociopolitical contexts of France, this article argues that public declarations of apostasy from Islam in France (as narratives of salvation embracing the promise of modernity, while critiquing the supposedly inherent backwardness of Islam) are engaged in a particular mode of subjectivation that cannot be understood outside of the ontological afterlives of colonialism.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43260780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Je suis incroyant, mais un incroyant de culture musulmane”: a roundtable discussion with Salim Bachi","authors":"Joseph Ford, A. Bharat","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.13","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44226330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Slimane Benaïssa is a Franco-Algerian playwright and novelist of Ibadi Muslim and Chaoui Amazigh (Berber) heritage. In his play Prophètes sans dieu (1998), written and staged in France during the 1990s conflict in Algeria, Benaïssa provides a platform for an imaginary dialogue between an actor playing Moses, an actor playing Jesus, and the author who refuses to represent the prophet Mohammed, out of reverence for sacred texts and respect for (fellow) Muslims. In this way, Benaïssa attempts to straddle the sacrilegious and the sublime through a philosophical, quasi-theological debate interrogating the potential of the Abrahamic connection to both unify and divide. Through an analysis of counterfactual mise-en-scène, role play, and word play, this article reveals that, behind the apparent humor in Benaïssa’s play, there is a sharp indictment of the instrumentalization of religion, an openness to (self-)questioning, and a sensibility to doubt. The playwright challenges assumptions and invites interfaith dialogue, while remaining wary of organized religion and advocating an inclusive laïcité. Moreover, Benaïssa poses a double critique of French colonization and theocratic dictatorship, arguing that with independence must come freedom of conscience alongside freedom of speech. In this way, the stage becomes a site of inter-doubt dialogue, questioning the limits of representation, faith, and freedom.
Slimane Benaïssa是一位法国-阿尔及利亚剧作家和小说家，拥有伊巴迪穆斯林和Chaoui Amazigh(柏柏尔)血统。在1990年代阿尔及利亚冲突期间，他在法国创作并上演的戏剧《无主的先知》(prophetes sans dieu, 1998)中，Benaïssa提供了一个平台，让扮演摩西的演员和扮演耶稣的演员，以及出于对神圣文本的敬畏和对穆斯林同胞的尊重而拒绝扮演先知穆罕默德的作者之间进行想象对话。通过这种方式，Benaïssa试图跨越亵渎和崇高，通过哲学，准神学辩论，质疑亚伯拉罕联系的潜力，既统一又分裂。通过对反事实情境、角色扮演和文字游戏的分析，本文揭示了Benaïssa戏剧中明显的幽默背后，有对宗教工具化的尖锐控诉，对(自我)质疑的开放，以及对怀疑的敏感。这位剧作家挑战假设，邀请不同信仰之间的对话，同时对有组织的宗教保持警惕，并倡导包容的laïcité。此外，Benaïssa对法国殖民和神权独裁提出了双重批判，认为独立必须伴随着良心自由和言论自由。通过这种方式，舞台成为一个相互怀疑的对话场所，质疑代表，信仰和自由的局限性。
{"title":"Inter-doubt dialogue in Slimane Benaïssa’s Prophètes sans dieu","authors":"Rebekah Vince","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.12","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Slimane Benaïssa is a Franco-Algerian playwright and novelist of Ibadi Muslim and Chaoui Amazigh (Berber) heritage. In his play Prophètes sans dieu (1998), written and staged in France during the 1990s conflict in Algeria, Benaïssa provides a platform for an imaginary dialogue between an actor playing Moses, an actor playing Jesus, and the author who refuses to represent the prophet Mohammed, out of reverence for sacred texts and respect for (fellow) Muslims. In this way, Benaïssa attempts to straddle the sacrilegious and the sublime through a philosophical, quasi-theological debate interrogating the potential of the Abrahamic connection to both unify and divide. Through an analysis of counterfactual mise-en-scène, role play, and word play, this article reveals that, behind the apparent humor in Benaïssa’s play, there is a sharp indictment of the instrumentalization of religion, an openness to (self-)questioning, and a sensibility to doubt. The playwright challenges assumptions and invites interfaith dialogue, while remaining wary of organized religion and advocating an inclusive laïcité. Moreover, Benaïssa poses a double critique of French colonization and theocratic dictatorship, arguing that with independence must come freedom of conscience alongside freedom of speech. In this way, the stage becomes a site of inter-doubt dialogue, questioning the limits of representation, faith, and freedom.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41482391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cet article se propose d’interroger les ressorts de la marginalisation de la problématique de l’apostasie dans l’espace franco-algérien, du moment colonial à notre époque marquée par les polémiques récurrentes autour de la question musulmane. La présente contribution s’appuie notamment sur l’étude de publications en langue française, de sensibilités communistes ou anarchistes mais aussi conservatrices et fascistes, afin de souligner les ambivalences ainsi que les paradoxes de groupes politiques traversés par des courants “islamophiles” et “islamophobes.”
{"title":"Une apostasie impensable? Les ressorts d’une marginalisation dans l’espace franco-algérien","authors":"N. S. Moussa","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.8","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Cet article se propose d’interroger les ressorts de la marginalisation de la problématique de l’apostasie dans l’espace franco-algérien, du moment colonial à notre époque marquée par les polémiques récurrentes autour de la question musulmane. La présente contribution s’appuie notamment sur l’étude de publications en langue française, de sensibilités communistes ou anarchistes mais aussi conservatrices et fascistes, afin de souligner les ambivalences ainsi que les paradoxes de groupes politiques traversés par des courants “islamophiles” et “islamophobes.”","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44707701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although several public apostates from Islam are well known in France, most are not French. More attention is granted to French musulmans laïques: practicing Muslims who underline their support for a contemporary model of laïcité holding that religious practices should be restricted to the private sphere. Olivier Arnaubec’s novel 2023. Le mur (2015), Xavier Durringer’s film Ne m’abandonne pas (2016), and Zahwa Djennad’s novel Tabou. Confession d’un jeune de banlieue (2013) reflect this, each deploying musulman laïque protagonists to communicate divergent visions of French Islam, while mentioning the figure of the apostate at most in passing. This may be because the figure of the secular Muslim can easily be appropriated to support the creator of each work’s differing vision of the place of Islam in French society. Musulman laïque protagonists help further Arnaubec’s racist rejection of populations racialized as “Muslim”; the more insidious form of Islamophobia associated with the political mainstream seen in Durringer’s film; and Djennad’s portrayal of Islamic practice as already wholly French without needing further “assimilation.” This article argues that the figure of the ex-Muslim is harder to appropriate to any of these ends, a difficulty which helps to explain the discrepancy in public prominence between the musulman laïque and the apostate in contemporary France.
{"title":"Ex-musulmans and musulmans laïques in contemporary French literature and film","authors":"Fraser McQueen","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.11","url":null,"abstract":"Although several public apostates from Islam are well known in France, most are not French. More attention is granted to French musulmans laïques: practicing Muslims who underline their support for a contemporary model of laïcité holding that religious practices should be restricted to the private sphere. Olivier Arnaubec’s novel 2023. Le mur (2015), Xavier Durringer’s film Ne m’abandonne pas (2016), and Zahwa Djennad’s novel Tabou. Confession d’un jeune de banlieue (2013) reflect this, each deploying musulman laïque protagonists to communicate divergent visions of French Islam, while mentioning the figure of the apostate at most in passing. This may be because the figure of the secular Muslim can easily be appropriated to support the creator of each work’s differing vision of the place of Islam in French society. Musulman laïque protagonists help further Arnaubec’s racist rejection of populations racialized as “Muslim”; the more insidious form of Islamophobia associated with the political mainstream seen in Durringer’s film; and Djennad’s portrayal of Islamic practice as already wholly French without needing further “assimilation.” This article argues that the figure of the ex-Muslim is harder to appropriate to any of these ends, a difficulty which helps to explain the discrepancy in public prominence between the musulman laïque and the apostate in contemporary France.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46994966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the wake of the 2010-2011 Arab Spring uprisings, six Tunisians of Muslim parentage were prosecuted in quick succession for blasphemy in a series of unprecedented trials. This article focuses specifically on the link between blasphemy and apostasy in the prosecutions of Tunisians in the 2011-2013 period. Some defendants accepted the link between blasphemy and apostasy, while others rejected being labeled apostates. Through an analysis of these cases, I conclude that the defendants who embraced the label of apostate were more severely punished by the local judicial system than those who rejected it. I also explore the possibility that those who openly assume an apostate position situated outside the Islamic community are also simply less well connected, and thus ill-advised, as to how to navigate a legal system whose public order and public decency articles allow judges significant latitude.
{"title":"Blaspheming apostates? The lines between insulting religion and leaving Islam in post-Arab Spring Tunisia","authors":"L. Thompson","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2022.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2022.9","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the wake of the 2010-2011 Arab Spring uprisings, six Tunisians of Muslim parentage were prosecuted in quick succession for blasphemy in a series of unprecedented trials. This article focuses specifically on the link between blasphemy and apostasy in the prosecutions of Tunisians in the 2011-2013 period. Some defendants accepted the link between blasphemy and apostasy, while others rejected being labeled apostates. Through an analysis of these cases, I conclude that the defendants who embraced the label of apostate were more severely punished by the local judicial system than those who rejected it. I also explore the possibility that those who openly assume an apostate position situated outside the Islamic community are also simply less well connected, and thus ill-advised, as to how to navigate a legal system whose public order and public decency articles allow judges significant latitude.","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48442555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.3828/cfc.2021.46.issue-4
{"title":"Contemporary French Civilization: Volume 46, Issue 4","authors":"","doi":"10.3828/cfc.2021.46.issue-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/cfc.2021.46.issue-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53563,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary French Civilization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46539547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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