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Middle East CentreAuthor: Oxford University
The Middle East Centre, founded in 1957 at St Antonys College is the centre for the interdisciplinary study of the modern Middle East in the University of Oxford. Centre Fellows teach and conduct research in the humanities and social sciences with direct reference to the Arab world, Iran, Israel and Turkey, with particular emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, during our regular Friday seminar series, attracting a wide audience, our distinguished speakers bring topics to light that touch on contemporary issues. Language: en-uk Genres: Education, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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"Barbarian” Women: North African Literary Perspectives on Emancipation
Monday, 15 June, 2026
Dr Farah Ben Jemaa (University of Manouba) delivered this seminar at the MEC, chaired by Professor Michael Willis (St Antony’s College), as part of the Gender and Sexuality Seminars series. This talk examines examples of North African literature, from early twentieth-century texts to more recent works. These writings question forms of female emancipation associated with Western norms and imaginaries, while opening space for alternatives rooted in affects and collective experience. The talk will also reflect on the methodological approaches — particularly spatial ones — that may help us read and understand these literary representations. Farah Ben Jemaa is a professeure agrégée of French literature at the University of Tunis. Her research focuses on space and representations of the self in modern and contemporary literature. She completed a PhD in French Literature at the University of Manouba, with a dissertation on spatiality in the work of Valery Larbaud. She has published on authors including Georges Perec, René Char, and Valery Larbaud, as well as on contemporary cultural productions and artistic practices. Her recent work explores alternative cartographies, and the intersections of literature, politics, and feminist critique. She is currently a visiting academic at St Antony’s College for the Trinity term, thanks to the support of the Hazem Ben-Gacem Tunisia-Oxford Cooperation Programme.
