DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN

Taïeb Berrada received his BA in English and Russian at the University of Paul Valéry Montpellier III, his MA in French Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his PhD in French and Francophone Studies at Northwestern University. He taught at the University of California at Irvine from 2007 to 2009, and joined the Lehigh University faculty in Fall 2009.His research and teaching interests are in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, more specifically, North African Literatures and Cultures, Film, Graphic Novels, Rap Music, Critical and Postcolonial Theory. Professor Berrada is particularly interested in analyzing the complex relationship between France and the Maghreb through the theoretical lenses of identity, space, traumatic memory, and displacement in view of a reassessment of contemporary claims to transnationalism. His research focuses on clandestine narratives, namely stories of illegal immigrants crossing South-North borders in Contemporary Maghrebi novels and films, illicit substances, representations of cannibalism and homosexuality in Maghrebi literature.  Recent publications include:  La figure de l'intrus. Représentations postcoloniales maghrébines (2016), “Homosexualité, Islam et désacralisation du pouvoir royal dans Le Jour du Roi d’Abdellah Taïa” in Dalhousie French Studies (117, 2020), and "Migrant Necropolitics at the Table: 'Civilized Cannibalism' in Mahi Binebine's Cannibales." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (21.6, 2019).