Sexualized Collaborations and the Politics of Ghostwriting in Franco-Arab Literature: From Paul Bowles to Tout le monde aime Mohamed
AbstractIn the last few decades, the landscape of Franco-Arab fiction has seen a great many authorship scandals, in which French non-Arab authors have impersonated Arabs and found publishing success. In this essay, I revisit these scandals while focusing on a recent “autobiographical” novel that raised suspicions of ghostwriting: 2011’s Tout le monde aime Mohamed (Everyone Loves Mohamed ) by Malik Kuzman. An impressionistic collage of homo-erotic encounters, its fleeting structure recalls that of Barthes’ Incidents, a series of social vignettes culled from the author’s time in Morocco. I explore the simultaneity of Barthes’ Death of the Author argument and the emergence of these authorship scandals in post-colonial Franco-Arab fiction, and suggest that it is not accidental. In a similar vein, I analyze how the heritage of literary collaborations between Europeans and North Africans, often eroticized, has informed authorship scandals in post-immigration France.
The Mystery of the Missing Mantle: The Poet as Wittol? (Ibn Quzmān's Zajal 20 )
This article subjects Ibn Quzmān's Zajal 20 to a critical analysis, showing that, like other Quzmānī poems, its thematic structure is chiastic. Insofar as structure and meaning are two fundamental and interrelated components in any given literary work, the poem's structure further leads us from its surface buffoonery into its deeper levels of significance. Zajal 20, which purports to be a panegyric, actually subverts that genre by breaking several of the rules of poetic composition prescribed by Arabic rhetoricians. Through his violation of these rules, the poet offers an ironic critique of certain corrupt legal practices prevalent in his day.
Using Skills from Art in Surgical Practice and Research-Surgery and Art
Many aspects of surgery and the arts are inexorably linked together, and the use of artistic techniques or ideas to improve surgical practice is present throughout the history of medicine. In all forms of surgery, throughout the ages, artists have been used to illustrate new ideas, new techniques and to document surgical practice. Some of the most successful art originated from surgeons who were also artists; perhaps due to their innate understanding of what they were portraying. Studying art and developing creative skills can enhance modern surgical practice in many different ways.