Presenter: Sarah Carey
Faculty Mentor: Steven Brence
Presentation Type: Oral
Primary Research Area: Humanities
Major: Philosophy
Funding Source: Humanities Undergraduate Research Fellowship, UROP and Oregon Humanities Center, $2,500
In the past fifteen years, the Algerian War, long a taboo topic in France, has begun to receive attention in public discourse and mainstream media, including a number of recent films. In my work, I analyze five contemporary
French films’ portrayals of the war, asking what these films say about the ways in which violence and oppressive colonial relations harm both the colonizers and the colonized. I engage critically with the theories of Albert Memmi, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus, and argue that these films simultaneously illustrate and complicate these philosophers’ theories of the colonizer as a perpetrator of violence. I argue that these films’ graphic portrayals of the degrading effects of extreme violence on colonizers and colonized alike challenge Franz Fanon’s theory of the essential, cathartic, and redeeming role of violence in revolutions. My research contributes to the slowly growing body of scholarly work on the Algerian War in a unique way, as I address these films philosophically and reveal how the war continues to inform French identity. Additionally, my research comes at a pivotal moment as France becomes increasingly involved in the growing conflicts in the Middle East and Northern Africa and is reminded of its colonial history. And finally, my research helps shed light on the effects of systematic oppression and violence on people in the world at large.