English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Algerian graphic novelist Nawel Louerrad always probes questions of identity and memory in her texts. In  Les Vêpres algériennes  (2012) and  Bach to Black  (2013), she argues for an understanding of these concepts as multiple and fluid, thus countering memorial discourses by advocating instead for spaces where individuals can be constructed and deconstructed at will. This paper analyzes how Louerrad’s aesthetic and thematic treatment of shapes and sounds clears a path for original representations of identity formation. In giving the narrator a multitude of shapes, the artist hints at the internal conflicts present within each body and generates a graphically striking visual heteroglossia. Similarly, Louerrad’s obsession with sounds and music destabilises meaning by fragmenting semiotic systems at play within her  bandes dessinées. Algerian graphic novelists and mangakas are both opening and broadening the space for their media in the rapidly evolving field and market of the ninth art. Often, however, their productions still allude to Algeria’s colonial past as a lingering trauma. Not unlike her peers, Louerrad is very careful to maintain the fictional dimension of her art, dismissing western expectations that postcolonial subjects be overtly political. The absurd turn of her plots ensures that her metaphysical quests, while also political, remain above all artistic endeavours.

Of shapes and sounds : identity and Algerian memory in Nawel Louerrad’s graphic novels