As an LGBT Muslim who came out in the Moroccan press during an era in which homosexuality in North Africa is far from accepted, Taïa has written 11 books and last year he released his ground-breaking film Salvation Army, based on his novel of the same name. See a New York Times article on his work here.
Taïa's visit is part of the Mediterranean Metageograpies series, which seeks to create a forum for the multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted examination of the Mediterranean Sea and the cultures that have shared and contested it for millennia. Titled MEDITERRANEAN METAGEOGRAPHIES, the series is organized around—and anchored by—the graduate seminars taught in the fall (Professor Neil Doshi) and spring (Professor Lina Insana) in the Department of French & Italian. MEDITERRANEAN METAGEOGRAPHIES celebrates shared interests of the department faculty while also offering graduate students an important opportunity to interact with visiting scholars and to extend seminar discussions to a wider forum. Further, by creating a forum for film screenings and the public presentation of creative work emerging from the Mediterranean region, we hope to engage undergraduate students and the broader community in this dialogue.
Events during Taïa's visit include:
Sunday, September 27, 3-5 pm, Reading at the East End Book Exchange, 4754 Liberty Avenue, Bloomfield
Monday, September 28, Noon-1:30 pm, Roundtable (in French), "La Langue et l’indentité dans le monde francophone," 4217 Posvar Hall
Tuesday, September 29, 7-9:30 pm, Film screening of Taïa's Salvation Army and discussion with director, Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
Wednesday, September 30, 12:30-2 pm, Discussion of Taïa's novel An Arab Melancholia, 402-E Cathedral of Learning
Taïa's visit is being organized by the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program, and co-sponsored by the Global Studies Center, the Film Studies Program, European Studies Center, the Department of French and Italian, the Department of Religious Studies, Dietrich School Undergraduate Studies, the Humanities Center, and the Year of the Humanities.
See the full schedule here, or contact Todd Reeser for more information.
Images from Abdellah's visit:
