On Colonial Textuality and Difference: Musical Encounters with French Colonialism in Nineteenth-Century Algeria

explorers traveled to Algeria in order to gain artistic inspiration and greater understanding of the culture, geography and inhabitants of the new colony. This dissertation places music within the context of French colonial culture, identifying the interconnections between government policies and cultural production during France’s occupation of Algeria. A central theme is the examination of colonial difference and a phenomenon that may be characterized as colonial textuality in music. Drawing from Homi Bhabha, I define colonial textuality as a space where signifiers of value, judgment and power are encountered, negotiated and embedded within colonial discourse. Three composers— Ernest Reyer (1823-1909), Francisco Salvador Daniel (1831-1871) and Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)—are presented as case studies to understand the complexities and tensions that arose out of the colonial moment and to examine how each figure negotiated his own compositional style, musical career and artistic identity vis-à-vis colonial Algeria. The dissertation is organized chronologically by examining the lives and compositions of three composers living in Algeria during three key periods of Frenc