Reader in Francophone, Postcolonial and African Studies

Tel: 0113 343 3501
Fax: 0113 343 3477
Email: k.salhi@leeds.ac.uk

• Knudson Visiting French and Francophone Studies Advisor (2008-)
  College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Visiting Professor (Summer-Autumn 2006). College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Visiting Professor (Summer 2007). Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, State University of Oregon.
• Founding-Director of the Leeds Centre for Francophone Studies (1997-2003)
• Deputy Director of the Leeds Centre for African Studies (2003-present)
• Founder and Editor of the academic International Journal of Francophone Studies
• Member of the University Senate (2007-2010)
  
• Member of the Arts Faculty Board (2006-present)

Biography

After a successful French-based education, Kamal Salhi worked as a high school teacher. He then studied law and politics at the University of Aix-en-Pce and taught at l'Ecole Nouvelle Internationale Libre (France). He wrote and put-up plays, made documentaries and co-directed the full-length film, Pour la Liberté, in French and Berber about the Franco-Algerian conflict. He attended specialised courses in cinema and theatre, organised conferences and seminars, travelled around North and Sub-Saharan Africa for research purposes.

He followed by a PhD with Distinction in Francophone Literature and Drama at the University of Exeter.

He was appointed to a research fellowship and taught French as an assistant. He was appointed Director of the Institute of Languages at the University of Tizi Ouzou. In 1994 he took up a research fellowship at Exeter before joining in 1995 the Department of French at the University of Leeds. In 1997, he established the Centre for Francophone Studies which has now developed into Centre for French and Francophone Cultural Studies and received the Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education from the University of Leeds.

Teaching

He lectures on Aime Cesaire at Level 1; on Leopold Sedar Senghor, the Negritude movement, Francophone Africa, French politics and society, modern French thought at level 2; but his specialist teaching lies in the area of Francophone postcolonial studies at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is course director for three specialist modules, Francophone Voices, Francophone Cinema - Postcolonial Images and Colonial legacy - Postcolonial Conflict. In addition he contributes teaching on other generic modules such as French/Francophone literatures and cultures, research methodologies, world cinemas and international theatre. Kamal was the Director of the MA in Francophone Studies. He is also “required” to teach French language at all levels when his teaching load allows.

Research

His research lies primarily in the area of Francophone and post-colonial studies: politics and aesthetics of African cultural production (theatre, film, literature), post-colonial theory, North African cultural and language policies, and currently looking into legacies and conflicts in the cultures of independence and the diaporas. He has supervised and examined research work and organised international Francophone Conferences and study days.

• The Politics and Aesthetics of colonial and post-colonial literary and filmic expressions.
• The analysis of the Francophone cultural production (literature, theatre and film) of North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.
• Language policies and national identities in post- independent, Francophone Africa.
• Francophone intellectual activity in France and the diasporas.
• Exilic cultural experiences.

Publications

Major publications include

Monograph

• The Politics and Aesthetics of Kateb Yacine: From Francophone Literature to Popular Theatre. 448 pp. (Mellen Press, 1999).

Edited books

• African Theatre for Development. 188 pp. (Intellect, 1997).
• Francophone Voices. 248 pp. (Elm Bank, 1999).
• Francophone Studies: Discourse and Identity. 265 pp. (Elm Bank, 2000).
• French in and out of France: Language Policies, Intercultural Antagonisms and Dialogue. 487 pp. (Lang, 2002).
• Francophone Post-colonial Culures: Critical Essays. 471 pp. (Lexington, 2003).

Recent articles

• “Critical Imperatives of the French Language in the Francophone World: Colonial Legacy – Postcolonial Policy”, Current Issues in Language Planning, Vol. 3:3, pp. 317-345 (2002).
• “Theatre of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia” in Martin Banham (ed.), A History of Theatre in Africa, pp. 37-76 (CUP, 2004).
• “Rethinking Francophone Culture: Africa and the Caribbean between History and Theory”, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 35.1, pp. 9-29, (2004).
• “Cheikh Anta Diop”, in Christopher John Murray (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Modern French Thought, Routledge, pp. 176-179, (2004).
• “Imaging Silence – Representing Women: Ambiguous Cinematic Strategies in North African Women’s film”, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Vol. 24.4, 2007.
• “Slimane Benaïssa from Exile in the Theatre to Theatre in Exile: Ambiguous Traumas and Conflicts in the Algerian Diasporic Drama”, in Journal of North African Studies, Vol. 37-4, 18, pp. 373-407, (2006).
• “Religion in francophone postcolonial literatures of North and Sub-Saharan Africa”, in Prem Poddar, Rajeev Patke, Lars Jensen, A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures: Continental Europe and its Empires. EUP, (2007).
• “Essentials for Rethinking Postcolonial Cultures and Arts: the Problematic of Minoritizing in North Africa”, in N. Boudraa and J. Krausse (eds), Mosaic North Africa: a Cultural Re-appraisal of Ethnic and Religious Minorities, Cambridge Scholars, 2007.

Kamal Salhi is the founder and editor the first independent, academic, international journal of francophone studies, celbrating its tenth anniversary in 2007. www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals.php?issn=13682679