Welcome to Maghrebi Studies

The Maghrebi Studies Site!

This site deals with “Maghrebi” art and culture. The focus is on literature, cinema and music that in some way can trace their origins back to the three countries that were colonized by France in the colonial era, but many of the writers and artists we deal with have been citizens of France for decades and may consider themselves as much or more so French then Moroccan, Algerian or Tunisian. Others are “Beur” writers, born and raised in France, but to immigrant families. Still others are based in the United States of some other country, but still maintain and artistic relation to their home land. In other words, this is not a site obsessed with labels. It is a site that is concerned with the Maghreb as a source of inspiration and as a social and cultural heritage.

Originally developed by a group of graduate students in the Comparative Literature and Translation Studies Program of Binghamton University, our purpose was to bring this cultural production to the attention of an Anglophone public.

As scholars of translation and translators ourselves, we hoped to encourage translation of the literature into English. The site has been revived under the auspices of the Al-Musharaka Initiative of the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) as a “touchstone” for teaching about the region and its culture at NITLE affiliated colleges, and as a web presence on which a “Maghrebi Studies” collaboration can be built. We hope you find it useful and interesting.