Faculty of Letters, Languages and Arts
Department of Arabic Language
Titled: "Cultural Criticism and Aesthetic Deconstruction in Contemporary Maghreb Literature"
_Comparisons of Social Discourse Representations between Novel and Theatre_
Conference Preface
Contemporary Maghreb literature, in all its narrative and theatrical forms, constitutes a rich laboratory for the intersection of cultural and aesthetic discourses, and a fertile field for questioning social and symbolic awareness in light of the transformations experienced by Maghreb societies in recent decades. With literary criticism opening up to cultural approaches and deconstructive readings, the literary text is no longer merely a linguistic or aesthetic construct but has become a space for interaction between systems of thought, power, and meaning, as well as between aesthetics and social and cultural representations.
The relationship between cultural criticism and aesthetic deconstruction allows a new approach to literary texts, going beyond traditional boundaries between aesthetic analysis and ideological interpretation, revealing the complex nature of literary discourse as both an intellectual and aesthetic practice. From this perspective, this scientific conference aims to uncover the interactions between cultural criticism and aesthetic deconstruction in analyzing Maghreb literature and exploring how the novel and theatre represent social discourse, serving as critical spaces reflecting transformations of collective consciousness, questions of identity, power, and meaning.
The conference also seeks to highlight the role of literature in interrogating the symbolic and cultural structures that govern social action, and analyzing transformations in literary aesthetics in light of contemporary critical approaches, including cultural criticism, deconstruction, and semiotics. This multidimensional approach enables the development of modern critical visions linking aesthetic depth and cultural analysis, aiming to read Maghreb novels and theatre texts from a perspective aligned with the evolution of contemporary Arab literary and critical thought.
Conference Problem Statement
#Observation Contemporary Maghreb literary criticism is undergoing profound transformations with its openness to cultural and deconstructive approaches, which have re-examined the relationship between literature and society, and between beauty and meaning. Critical reading has gone beyond traditional structural and aesthetic analysis to question the text as a cultural practice revealing the implicit symbolic structures within social and political discourse. In this context, the intersection of cultural criticism and aesthetic deconstruction emerges as a new horizon for understanding Maghreb novelistic and theatrical texts as spaces producing and reshaping meaning within a network of values, powers, and conflicting significations.
How can an approach combining cultural criticism and aesthetic deconstruction reveal representations of social discourse in contemporary Maghreb literature, particularly in the novel and theatre? To what extent does this interaction between the aesthetic and cultural dimensions contribute to redefining the function of literature and its role in interrogating identity, power, and meaning within the modern Maghreb context?
