Kamal Salhi
Knudson Visiting French and Francophone Studies Advisor
Email: k.salhi@leeds.ac.uk
Kamal Salhi (PhD) is Reader in Francophone, Postcolonial, and North African Studies at the University of Leeds. He teaches Francophone postcolonial cultures, literatures, film and theatre in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. His research expertise primarily covers the geographical areas of Africa, North and South of the Sahara and their diasporas, and lies in the areas of politics and aesthetics of their cultural production (film, theatre, literature), post-colonial theory, Francophone thought, cultural and language policies, and currently looking into legacies and conflicts in the cultures of independence; cultures in displacement; indigenous minority cultures, and postcolonial genders.
He is a scholar committed to maintaining and developing research across the broad multidisciplinary as well as chronological range of French/Francophone studies. Although his research centres on non-canonical cultural history spanning postcolonial North and Sub-Saharan Africa, and to a certain extent the Caribbean, and their cultural production, his theoretical approaches foreground the dialectical complexity in the history of Francophone postcolonial ideas. The non-western optic has led him to posit the fundamental nature of history in the relationship between, on one hand pre-colonial artistic forms and colonial literary and artistic practice, and on the other hand aspects of the cultural production and post-independence approaches to this production. His centre of interests has also rapidly developed into pressing inquiries into the impact of modern French culture in global world culture and the impact of this global culture on French hexagonal culture, and subsequent intellectual developments (colonial and postcolonial). He is also conscious of the fact that Francophone studies and postcolonial theory are not concepts that are particularly well understood either in France or in the Francophone countries themselves. Notwithstanding interdisciplinary tendencies in the work of some postcolonial critical practitioners, he sees that much of the work being done today in colonial and postcolonial studies is not as much of an interdisciplinary nature as it often claims. As a corrective to the growing interdiscursive practices in much English-speaking scholarship, his work has sought to innovate and place greater emphasis, in a concerted effort via for example his International Journal of Francophone Studies and his books, on the combination of the particular forms of expression and of knowledge and critical-theoretical methodologies different disciplines provide. His research also draws from within the Francophone postcolonial intellectual mass of the Francophone countries themselves, which remains under-researched. He has directed, advised and examined research work and organized international conferences, symposia and colloquia.
Professor Salhi was the founding-director of the first UK Centre for Francophone Studies (1997-2003) and deputy director of the Centre for African Studies (2003-present) at the University of Leeds, and held several research and teaching positions internationally. He was International Council Visiting Professor in the Department of French, UIUC, (2006) and National Endowment Visiting Professor for the Summer Institute at the State University of Oregon (2007).
He is the founder and editor of the International Journal of Francophone Studies, member of the advisory board of the Lexington Books series After the Empire. The Francophone World & Postcolonial France, and member of the advisory board of Millennium: Journal of International Studies.
Since 2003, he has been serving on the prestigious NOMA AWARD as the assessor for critical and creative Francophone work. In 2006 he was appointed to the British Arts and Humanities Research Council to serve on its peer review college. He has been the recipient of several research grants and awards and has been keynote speaker at numerous international research events. His academic standing is also characterized by a number of various professional services he provided to national and international radios and televisions, research funding bodies and institutions, professional associations and societies. His career began as a film maker, co-directing the first French-Berber film, Pour la liberté (1982) and directing La mère [Mother] (1983), wining international prizes, and theatre director with his first play l’Honeur [Honor] (1985).
Professor Salhi's selected publications:
Books
African Theatre for Development: Art for self-determination, 188 pp. (Exeter: Intellect, 1998).
The Politics and Aesthetics of Kateb Yacine. From Francophone Literature to Popular Theatre, 448 pp. (New York/Ontario/Lampeter: Mellen Press, 1999).
Francophone Theatre, Special Edition, International Journal of Francophone Studies, 84 pp. (Oxford/Exeter/Bristol: Intellect Books, 1999).
Francophone Voices, 248 pp. (Exeter: Elm Bank Publications, 1999).
Francophone Studies: Discourse and Identity, 265 pp. (Exeter: Elm Bank Publications, 2000).
French in and out of France. Language Policies, Intercultural Antagonisms and Dialogue, 487 pp. (Oxford / Bern / New York: Peter Lang, 2002).
Francophone Post-colonial Cultures, 471 pp. (New York, Oxford, Lanham: Lexington Books – Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
Parts of books and full articles
"Post-colonial Theatre for Development in Algeria", in African Theatre for Development: Art for self-determination, pp. 69-96 (Oxford/Exeter/Bristol: 1998).
"French Words, Authentic Voices", in Francophone Voices, pp. 27-48 (Exeter: 1999).
"Assia Djebar.. Speaking", in Francophone Voices, pp. 69-84 (Exeter: 1999).
"Approaches to Francophone Studies", in Francophone Studies: Discourse and Identity, pp.1-17 (Exeter: Elm Bank Publications, 2000).
"Franco-Ivorian Discourse and Counter Discourse: Legitimization and Dissent", in Francophone Studies: discourse and identity, pp.43-83 (Exeter: 2000).
"Discourse in the Periodical of Twentieth-Century Benin", in Francophone Studies: discourse and identity, pp.19-42 (Exeter: 2000).
"Discourse and Identification in Franco-Berber Writing", in Francophone Studies: discourse and identity, pp.121-145 (Exeter: 2000).
"French within and without France", in French in and out of France. Language Policies, Intercultural Antagonisms and Dialogue, pp. 1-10 (Bern / New York: 2002).
"France and her Linguistic Minorities: A Case of ‘Domestic Colonialism’ in Occitania", in French in and out of France. Language Policies, Intercultural Antagonisms and Dialogue, pp. 137-168 (Bern / New York: 2002).
"The Pragmatics and Aesthetics of Kateb Yacine Theatre Practice", in Biodun Jeyifo, Modern African Drama, A Norton Critical Edition, pp. 515-522 (New York, London: W.W.Norton & Company 2002).
"Theatre of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia" in Martin Banham, A History of Theatre in Africa, pp. 37-76 (Cambridge: CUP, 2004).
"Essentials for Rethinking Postcolonial Cultures: The Problematic of Minoritizing in North Africa", in N. Boudraa and J. Krausse, Mosaic North Africa: a Cultural Re-appraisal of Ethnic and Religious Minorities, pp. 26-88 (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2007).
"Narrating the Algerian Nation", Bulletin of Francophone Africa, 14, pp.41-68, (1999).
"Theatre, Politics and National Identity: the Ambiguous Compromise", Journal of Algerian Studies, 4&5, 111-132, (1999/2000).
"Critical Imperatives of the French Language in the Francophone World: Colonial Legacy – Postcolonial Policy", Current Issues in Language Planning, Vol. 3:3, pp. 317-345 (2002).
"Rethinking Francophone Culture: Africa and the Caribbean between History and Theory", Research in African Literatures, Vol. 35.1, pp. 9-29, (2004).
"Slimane Benaïssa from Exile in the Theatre to Theatre in Exile: Ambiguous Traumas and Conflicts in the Algerian Diasporic Drama", in Journal of North African Studies, Vol. 37-4, 18, pp. 373-407, (2006).
"Imaging Silence – Representing Women: Moufida Tlatli’s Silences of the Palace and North African Feminist Cinema", in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Vol.24 Number 4, 2007, pp. 353-377