New Directions of Exploring Terrorism as a Colonial Legacy in Algerian and Palestinian Literature and Film

Abstract

The discussion around terrorism and its relation to colonialism has attracted remarkable academic attention since the 9/11 attacks. However, there is an equally remarkable historicization of the attack on the twin towers that presents the incident as an exceptional act of terrorism and secludes it from a long history of terror and counterterror in the global south.
This thesis attempts to study the new directions of exploring and exposing the linkages between colonialism and terrorism in Algerian and Palestinian literature and film. The choice of Algeria and Palestine attempts to compare the phenomenon in two cultural sites of research that are geographically, temporally, and culturally different. By analysing canonical productions as well as under-explored modes of writing, in two different (post) colonial contexts, this thesis criticises the paucity of serious academic endeavour to fill the gap between terrorism in the west and its historical roots of colonial terrorism in the east. To this end, this thesis explores material in Arabic, French, and English in the form of novels, testimonial literature, and films.
The argument seeks to foreground the vital importance of relying on subjective fields of intellectual inquiry, such as cultural studies, to understand terrorism as a global phenomenon. By analysing literary and visual representations of the cycles of colonialism and terrorism, this thesis demonstrates how colonial trauma is not curtailable to a time or space, it is self-regenerative and time enduring.