Join the IHGC community in celebrating the recent publication of Maya Boutaghou's White Tongue, Brown Skin: The Colonized Woman and Language. In this work, published by University of Virginia Press, Bhoutaghou poses the question, "What does it mean to be an heir, as a woman writer, to colonial and postcolonial cultures in which European language has become so thoroughly ingrained?" Examining women writers from India (Toru Dutt), Egypt (Mayy Ziyadah), Algeria (Assia Djebar), and Mauritius (Ananda Devi), White Tongue, Brown Skin sheds light on the essential double nature of the colonial experience.
Boutaghou’s latest book—her first in English—treats colonialism as analogous to a disease, manifesting itself in symptoms of multilingualism and cultural pluralism. Boutaghou shows how violently imposed multilingualism engenders in the mind of the colonized subject a state of permanent self-translation between two or more languages with unequal political and emotional power. They must endure a plural perception of the self, defined by the restless movement of self-translation, which becomes reflected in a literary dynamic frequently overlooked or misunderstood by previous scholarship.
This event will include an introduction from Dr. Samhita Sunya (Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures) and will feature a brief presentation from Boutaghou followed by a Q&A moderated by Sunya. Please register for the event by Wednesday, April 30th. Registrants may stop by the IHGC for FREE COPIES of the book, while supplies last.