Poétique(s) de la révolution: construction d’identité au travers des littératures Algérienne et Haïtienne

In this dissertation, I explore the texts of several writers from Haiti and Algeria to better understand how people live out their revolutions. I argue that in these two countries, revolution has been a cultural raison d’être since the fight for independence. This research pertains to both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and rethinks the concept of (post)colonialism in a francophone context as a field that is not fixed but constantly evolving. I show how, in these literatures written in French from Haiti and Algeria, revolution becomes an embedded trait of identity and a way of thinking despite their specific colonial histories, cultures and traditions. My project is framed by postcolonial theories but also utilizes concepts of testimony (Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard), nationalism (Benedict Anderson), terrorism (Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas) and psychoanalysis (Nicolas Abraham, Sigmund Freud, and Maria Torok). Using these diverse models of interpretation, my dissertation shows how texts that chronicle the evolution of the nation since independence showcase history against official historiography. Noting cultural, political and discursive parallels and differences between revolutionary events, I reveal the need to discursively inscribe revolution in order for it to exist as such. I also analyze revolutions as ongoing cycles by exploring the ideological distancing that exists between the nation as it is lived and as it is conceptualized. Finally, I also investigate the different forms that revolutions take, as symbolic acts in the face of tyrannical post-revolutionary governments and as spaces that develop subconsciously