Join historian Sara Rahnama and artist Nadja Makhlouf for a discussion of texts and videos pertaining to women’s experiences during the Algerian War of Independence.

Readings, listed below, include individual biographies of Algerian women veterans photographed by Nadja Makhlouf for De l'invisible au visible: Moudjahidate, femmes combattantes (2014), a photographic series included in the exhibition. Come ready to join the conversation.

Texts:

1. 1. Frantz Fanon, 'Algeria Unveiled' (1959), in Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then, ed. Prasenjit Duara (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 42-55.
2. 2. Written biographies from Nadja Makhlouf's photography series, De l'invisible au visible: Moudjahidate, femmes combattantes, 2014
3. 3. Recording of a talk by Natalya Vince, Algerian Women and their War Story/Stories in conversation with Arthur Asseraf.

Nadja Makhlouf is a French-Algerian photographer and video film maker. Her recent three-part project explores the contemporary status of women in Algeria. The first part traces the lives of Kabyle women, the second one focuses on women fighters during the Algerian War of Independence, while the final part foregrounds Touareg women in the desert. She is currently working on a project titled, Woman Feminist and Muslim. Nadja has exhibited at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; Addis Foto Fest, Addis Ababa; MAMA, Algiers; Oyoun, Berlin; Chouftouhonna festival, Tunisia, Photo Kathmandu, Nepal, among others. She lives between Paris and Algiers.

Sara Rahnama is an Assistant Professor of History at Morgan State University and a John Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress. She is currently completing her book, The Future is Feminist: Debates about Women in Interwar Algeria, which examines how writing about women became a language for Algerians to imagine prosperous, modern futures. Her recent article, "Hijabs and Hats in Interwar Algeria," published in Gender & History examines debates about women's hijabs and men's hats together in order to propose a more nuanced history of gendered headwear. In 2018, she received her doctorate in History from Johns Hopkins University, where she worked with Todd Shepard.

Katarzyna Falęcka is a Lecturer in Art History at Newcastle University, specializing in modern and contemporary art from North Africa. She holds a PhD from University College London and co-leads (together with Jessica Gerschultz and Nadia Jelassi) a program in modern art history at the Centre d’Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT).