A photo of Lia Brozgal

Lia Brozgal

Professor

E-mail: lbrozgal@humnet.ucla.edu Office: Royce Hall 222A

Office Hours: In-person: Weds, 10-noon

Fields of interest: 20th-21st c French and North African Literature and Cinema; Cultural Studies; Jewish Studies; Archives; History; Memory

Lia Brozgal is Professor of French and Francophone Studies. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty in 2008, she was an appointed lecturer in History and Literature at Harvard University. In 2019 and 2022, she was visiting professor at Bryn Mawr’s Institut d’Avignon (France). Her research and teaching encompass a variety of topics in contemporary French and North African literature, film, culture, and history. She is the author of Absent the Archive: Cultural Traces of a Massacre in Paris (17 October 1961) (Liverpool UP, 2020) and Against Autobiography: Albert Memmi and the Production of Theory (U Nebraska Press, 2013). In collaboration with Sara Kippur (Wellesley College), she is co-editor of Being Contemporary: French Literature, Culture and Politics Today (Liverpool UP, 2015).

Her work promoting Middle Eastern and North African francophone literature in translation includes the omnibus collection originally edited in French by Leïla Sebbar, A Jewish Childhood in the Muslim Mediterranean (co-edited with Rebecca Glasberg, UC Press, 2023)—named a finalist for the 2023 National Jewish Book Awards, and the 1938 Tunisian novella Ninette of Sin Street (co-edited and introduced with Sarah Stein [UCLA], Stanford UP, 2017). She is the author of essays on North African literature and cinema, beur cultural productions, chronicles of the Holocaust in North Africa, and Judeo-Maghrebi literature and film.

Education

  • Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
  • B.A. in French, Chatham College

Featured Works

Selected Publications

Articles

  • “Memmi, romancier, en pratique et en théorie.” In “Jean Amrouche et Albert Memmi: Portraits croisés.” Special issue of Apulée. Ed. Guy Dugas (2021): 386-388.
  • “Seeing Through Race in French Cinema.” L’Esprit Créateur. Special issue: Race and The Aesthetic in French and Francophone Cultures. 59.2 (2019): 12–24.
  • “Gros plan sur le 17 octobre 1961: Violence coloniale, cinéma documentaire et le sujet algérien.” In Représentations de le la guerre d’indépendance algérienne. Ed. Maya Boutaghou. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2019. 99-114.
  • “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Restraint. Judeo-Tunisian Narratives of Occupation.” In The Holocaust and North Africa: New Research. Eds. Aomar Boum and Sarah Stein. Stanford UP, 2018. 168-184.
  • “The Critical Pulse of the Contre-enquête: Kamel Daoud on the Maghrebi Novel In French.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. Special issue on the Contemporary Maghrebi Novel in French. 20.1 (2016) 37-46.
  • “In the Absence of the Archive (Paris, October 17, 1961).” South Central Review 31.1 (Spring 2014) 34-54.
  • “Are We Post-Francophone Yet? Coming to Terms with Dissatisfaction.” In Francophone Cultures and Geographies of Identity. Eds. Adlai Murdoch and Zuszsanna Fagyal. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013.
  • “Du jeu dans le texte: nouvelles pistes de lecture.” Littérature et jeu: des enjeux essentiels. Ed. Samir Marzouki. Series: Documents pour l’Histoire des Francophonies 28. Peter Lang, 2013. 81-86.
  • “When Good Sentiments Make for ‘Bad’ Cinema: Reconsidering Allegory in Un été à la Goulette.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 17.1 (Winter 2013) 28-37.
  • “La Banlieue to the Moon: Rachid Djaïdani’s Displacement of Paris.” Contemporary French Civilization 35.2 (2011) 87-109.
  • “Blindness, the Visual and Ekphrastic Impulses. Albert Memmi Colors in the Lines.” French Studies: New Ekphrastic Poetics (Special Issue). 64.3 (July 2010) 317-328.
  • “Hostages of Authenticity: Paul Smaïl, Azouz Begag and the Invention of the Beur Author.” French Forum 34.2 (Spring 2009) 113-130.

Reviews

  • Sharpe, Mani. Late-Colonial French Cinema. Filming the Algerian War of Independence.Modern & Contemporary France, 32(1), pp. 166–167 (2023)
  • El Guabli, Brahim. Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship After State Violence. The Journal of North African Studies. Published online September 7, 2023. DOI: 10.1080/13629387.2023.2256071
  • Lewis, Jonathan. The Algerian War in French/Algerian Writing. Literary Sites of Memory. In H-France Review 20.130 (July 2020).
  • Gott, Michael and Thibault Schilt, eds. Cinéma-monde. Decentered Perspectives on Global Filmmaking in French. In Europe Now (Sept. 2019):  https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/09/09/cinema-monde-decentered-perspectives-on-global-filmmaking-in-french-edited-by-michael-gott-and-thibault-schilt/
  • Donadey, Anne. Approaches to Teaching the Works of Assia Djebar. In Research in African Literatures 50.2  (Summer 2019): 264-265.
  • Memmi, Albert. Tunisie An I Tunisie, An I. Journal tunisien 1955-1956. Edited, prefaced, and with notes by Guy Dugas. In H-France Review 18.59 (March 2018).
  • “My Algeria Hurts: A Review Essay of Denis Guénoun’s A Semite: A Memoir of Algeria.” Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World. Online journal, pub date: January 13, 2015.
  • The Desert or The Adventures of Jubaïr el-Mammi by Albert Memmi. Translated from the French by Judith Roumani. CELAAN Review. In production; forthcoming June 2017.
  • Le Partage des mémoires: La guerre d’Algérie en littérature, au cinéma et sur le web by Djemaa Maazouzi, H-France 16.189 (Sept 2016). 3 pgs.
  • Calypso Jews: Jewishness in the Caribbean Literary Imagination by Sarah Phillips Casteel, Contemporary Jewry 36.2 (Oct 2016): 271-273.
  • Remembering French Algeria: Pieds-Noirs, Identity and Exile by Amy Hubbell, French Studies 70.4 (Oct 2016): 625-626.
  • The Allure of the Archive by Arlette Farge, Francosphères 3.1 (2014) 115-116.
  • Postcolonial Francophone Autobiographies: From Africa to the Antilles by Edgard Sankara and Postcolonial Poetics: Genre and Form, edited by Patrick Crowley and Jane Hiddleston, Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48.5 (Dec 2012): 566-568.
  • Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Francophone World, edtied by Natalie Debrauwere-Miller, Contemporary French Civilization 35.2 (2011) 181-84.

Translations

  • (French-English) Albert Memmi. “Autoportrait” in Souffles: A Critical Anthology from the Moroccan Journal of Culture and Politics. Eds. Olivia Harrison and Teresa Villa-Ignacio. Stanford UP, 2015.
  • (French-English, co-translation with Olivia Harrison) Abraham Serfaty. “Moroccan Jewry and Zionism” in Souffles: A Critical Anthology from the Moroccan Journal of Culture and Politics. Eds. Olivia Harrison and Teresa Villa-Ignacio. Stanford UP, 2015.
  • (French-English) Danielle Bohler. “Frontally and in Profile: The Identifying Gesture of the Late Medieval Author” in The Medieval Author in Medieval French Literature. Ed. Virginie Greene. Palgrave, 2006.
  • (French-English) “Interviews with Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibé.” You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibé. Michelle Lamunière. Yale UP, 2002.

Courses commonly taught

  • France and Its Others: Race, Ethnicity and Difference in French Cinema (FR 41)
  • Revelations and Revolutions: French-language Autobiography and Self-Representation (FR 166)
  • Being beur in France: littérature et cinéma de la génération beure (FR 121)
  • Le 17 octobre 1961, lorsque la littérature raconte l’histoire (FR 120)
  • Jewish North Africa in Literature and Film (FR 172/Cross listed with Jewish Studies 177)

Honors and Awards

  • American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship (2015-16)
  • Camargo Foundation Fellowship. Residency in Cassis, France. (Fall 2014)
  • University of California President’s Faculty Fellowship in the Humanities. (2012-2013)

Professional Activities

  • Editorial Board, Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies (2016-2019)
  • Member of Modern Language Association, LLC Francophone Forum (2016-2021)
  • Area Editor, North African Francophone Literature, The Literary Encyclopedia (2012-2014)