Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

French Studies

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

My dissertation, “Recasting Crime Fiction: The Francophone African and Haitian Crime Novel between Aesthetics and Politics”, investigates the social and literary meanings of the concept of politics as represented in African and Haitian crime novels. In this work, selected novels were examined considering their cultural, regional and linguistic particularities, as well as their perspectives on social criticism and politics. Drawing from fields such as sociocritical theory, philosophy, and history, this work allows for a more complex exploration of popular cultural productions while calling into question the literary genres. Consequently, it provides the opportunity to question cultural productions as an ideological refusal of borders while challenging the idea of Canon in Literature.

The first part of the dissertation, “Writing authors’ Commitment in Sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti,” analyzes the mishaps of independence and their literary portrayal in Africa and Haiti, which was often centered around political powers and marginal figures conveying the idea of independence as an illusion. Having explained how political powers created marginal figures, the second part, entitled “Generic Breaks: Sub-Saharan African and Haitian new narratives of the crime story” focuses on the techniques of writing and the ways in which African and Haitian authors positioned themselves in the Crime Fiction sphere, thereby reconfiguring it. The third part, “Crime Fiction and the politicization of the aesthetics”, scrutinizes the ways in which the Crime Fiction’s political order was transgressed by authors in Africa and Haiti for a unique approach in writings.

Date

7-4-2018

Committee Chair

Ngandu, Pius

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.4670

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