Theorizing Francophonie

THEORIZINGFRANCOPHONIE is: Francophonie •a problemof nominationand nominalism •a planetarycartography •a postcolonialontology •a linguisticplatformnot a place •a possibleworld of language •a multiplicityof linguisticlife-forms • synonymouswith Creole •a literarymarket •a poetics of the Idea (Dependency,Empire,Racism,Love, Kinship, Groups, Universals,the Relation, Singularity,the Event, Extension,Transit,Capitalism,Citizenship,Logics of the World) • the to toutmondisme passagefrom tiermondisme • a conditionof untranslatability lays specialstresson {Francophonie phonic, aural,and oral quotientsof textualityunaccountedfor in translation) • identifiableas an aporia • a limit conditionof translatability • a new comparativeliterature namesmultipleregionsmarkedby the Frenchlanguage Francophonie ratherthana specificnationor theory.Defined as a new comparativeliterature,often but not necessarilyhousedin Frenchstudies,it becomesa disciplinarysite of theorymuchlike ComparativeLiteratureat the dawningof its institutionalformationin exile during and afterWorld War II. Like negotiatesthe planetaryextensionof ComparativeLiterature,Francophonie COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES, Vol. 42, No. 4, 2005. Copyright © 2005 The PennsylvaniaState University,UniversityPark,PA. 297 Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 EmilyApter 298 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES the linguisticsystemsbetweenwhich translationsmove are designatedas "natural" or "national" languages.However,these termsare but or anything precise satisfactory.[. . .] The imprecisionof these termsis in directproportionto the linguisticdiversitythey seek to subsume.[. . .] The difficultyof finding a genericterm that would accuratelydesignatethe class to which individuallanguagesbelong is indicativeof the largerproblemof determiningthe principlesthat give those languagestheir relativeunity or coherence- assuming, that is, that such principlesreallyexist.2 Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 a field whose criticalparadigmsoriginallysprangfrompredominantlyEuropeanlanguagesand literatures.But where ComparativeLiteratureesdefaultsto caped the legacy of a single nationallanguage,Francophonie and to a of France, postcolonialmap discrepantFrench-speakingcommunities. ComparativeLiteraturehas translationstudiesto fall backon when seeking to measureincommensurability among languagesand literatures, and whereasFrancophonie maintainsa unipolarorientationaround"French" offers few criteriaof comparisonamong the French-cognatevernaculars that it subsumes.Where ComparativeLiteraturehas been historically - as a markedby empire,Francophonie territoryof languageswith French colonialismas common ground has a more specific history of colonial dependencyand disciplinaryeffacementto overcome,as Réda Bensmaïa remindsus in an importantpolemicalessaypublishedin YaleFrenchStudies in 2003. Bensmaïaplaced Francophonie under erasure,adopting Martin of the barred Heidegger'stranscript metaphysicsof presenceas anX superover Dasein and posed (Being), recallingJacquesDerridasuse of the grapheme in placingthe originarylogos on a pathof deferralanddifférence.The X overFrancophonie, in Bensmaïas ascription,marksa historyof disciplinthat is to say,of historicalsubjectionby non-European aryscotomization; Frenchliteraturesto "primalinterdict"or "builtin, pre-programmedinexistence."l Francophonie shining throughthe lateralbar resemblesan earlypropplane;not yet fully airborne,but primefor theorization. To theorize Francophonie is to work througha disciplinarynegation that defines what the field is by virtue of what it is not not the French canon;notthe literatureof the hexagon;nota discretelinguisticterritory.In naming the problemof its own nomination,Francophonie points to what comes afterthe identitypoliticsof languagepoliticsas the field takeson a deconstructiveepistemology;breakingthe isomorphicfit betweenFrench as the name of a language,and Frenchas the nameof a people.As Samuel Webernotes: THEORIZING FRANCOPHONIE 299 people. Forthereis no standardlanguagewith discretegrammaticalrulesand "American" may be the name of a language protocolscalled "American." referring(in nominalistterms) to a possibleworld of language;but it is neithera termusedby North Americanspeakersof Englishto referto their idiolect,nor is it a legitimatenation-marker(asJean-LucGodardsaid recently:"Iwouldreallyliketo find anotherwordforAmerican/When someone saysAmerican they mean someonewho lives betweenNew Yorkand Los Angeles, and not someone who lives between Montevideo and implicitly consigns Santiago.")3As the name of a language,"American" mention to etc.) to "foreign" Guarani, French, (not Portuguese, Spanish languagestatuseventhoughmillionsof hemisphericsubjectsof the Americas claimthese languagesas their nativetongues. U.S. nationalstend to considertraduitdeVaméricainto be an affrontfor differentreasons;a wayof referringto English-with-an-inferiority-complex; an exampleof the Frenchtakingsnobbishpridein their abilityto discern, with epicureanfinesse,the differencebetween British and AmericanEnacglish. And yet, despite these pejorativenuances,traduitde Vaméricain cordsvehicularstatuteand currencyto linguisticpracticesfound within a North Americanperimeter.With a similaroperation,one could nominate as the name for the co-presenceof Arabic,Berber,and French "Algerian" within a delineated Maghrebianterritory.The advantageof traduitde l'algérienis that it names a languageof regionalspecificitywhile circumventing the global hegemonyof musclelanguagessuch as Spanish,Manis that it names darin,English,or French.The disadvantageof "Algerian" no single language,and reinforcesnationalismwithin languagenomination.Frenchpublishersinadvertentlyencouragesuchnationalismwhen they Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 "French"as the name of a languagecontainsthe predicateof a national subjectthatis silentlyenunciated.Readasa problemof nominalism,"French" replaceslinguisticand nationalheterogeneitywith an abstractgenerality;a It is left to ungramuniversalsign on the orderof Wittgensteins Urzeichen. to sound out maticalexpressionssuch as "translatedfrom the Frenchman" theforçageof nation-subjectand language-subjectin the processof nomination.An equivalentdisjunctis heardin David Georgis exhumationof romansas the nameof FrenchbeforeFrenchhad currencyas the nameof a it declares'We arespeakfromthe Latinadverbromanice, language("derived In the samevein,the expresin Roman-ish we talk fashion"). ing Romanly; in-existent shows an de V américain traduit sion languagecominginto being throughthe act of renderingit coincidentwith the name of a nation or 3OO COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 adoptthe conventionof bracketingan authorscountryof originbesidethe or traduitde languageof the original as in traduitdel'espagnol {Argentine), {Australie). l'anglais To counternationalistlanguagepolitics,one mightconsiderusingdesas the name for French-inflectedlanguagesall ignationslike Francophonie overthe world.Awkwardas it sounds,underthese circumstancesthe English translationof KatebYacines Nedjma a classicof Francophonefiction might be characterized as "translatedfrom the Francophonie." in this instancerefersto a Frenchdesignatingno singlepeople Francophonie or nation,but a linguisticmultipleof extra-hexagonality: a phantominternation rangingcartographicallyfrom West Africa to the Indian Ocean, from the Caribbeanto Indochinaand Pondicherry,from North Africato EasternEurope,from Quebec to the Bayou.Irreducibleto the sum of re(in theory) could gional and ethnic idioms that compriseit, Francophonie become a viable nomenclaturefor "otherFrenches"on a par with "other Englishes."Frenchinflectedby indigenouslanguagesin the contactzone (as in the Creole-effectin the FrenchCreolophonenovel),or Frenchas an inflectingtongue (say,the basefor Creolesyntax,or a loan-wordlexiconin Bretonor Polynesian),would both fall underthis jurisdiction. Though Frenchhas alwaysbeen internallyplurilingual one has only to think of the languageof Panurge the historyof the languagecontains a storyof progressivemonolingualization.4Key momentsin this storyinclude:the electionof French(fromthe Middle Ages on) as the naturalheir to Latin, the tight fit between style and classicalunities in writing of the grandsiècle;the developmentof a nationalideologyinvestedin languageas a defenseagainstvulnerabilityin trade,empireand militaryprowesson the globalscene(fromthe Armadato the GreatGame);the ascensionof French as Europe'sLingua Franca;the Enlightenmentvalorizationof Frenchas the universallanguageof the Rights of Man; the promotionof standard languagein ruralareasby the Jacobinlanguagepolice (carriedoverto the pedagogicaloutreachof the Napoleonicteachingcorps),and,not least,the vigilant monitoring of "proper"usage by the French academies.Where "Anglophone"became a code word for postcolonial "Englishes,"its Francophonecounterpart "Frenches" failed to gain traction,not least in French,becomes"lesfrançais,"a term deperhapsbecause"Frenches," faultingto "theFrench"as a people. Resistingpluralization,Frenchas the nameof a languagenests &franco-français remaindertransferredfromplace to place,personto person,regardlessof location.5 EdouardGlissanthas insistedthat any notion of theFrenchlanguage warrantscritiqueas an "epistemologicalanachronism."6 In Poétiquede la THEORIZING FRANCOPHONIE 301 Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 relationhe subordinatesinstabilitiesof nominationto geopoetics;replacing modelwith a world-systemcomprisedof multiple the old center-periphery or linguisticsingularities interlockingsmallworlds,each a locus of poetic buildingon the non-dialecopacity.Glissant'sparadigmof the tout-monde, tical ontologicalimmanenceof Deleuze and Guattari,offers a model of aporetic community in which small worlds (modeled perhaps after a deterritorialized Caribbean),connectlaterallythroughbondsof Creoleand a politicsof mutualismcenteredon resistanceto debt. Looking aheadto a will surpasstiermondisme that is to say,when the day when toutmondisme nation-formgiveswayto the immanent,planetarytotalityof Creole,Glissant intowordof the world."Buildingon Glissant, imaginesCreole"transfigured but "theworlddiffracted the authorsof Elogedela créolitéenvisioncre'olite'zs in a a of a maelstrom Totality singlesignifier: signifieds [,..]full recomposedy forArtyforartabsolutely."7 theyargue,will bereserved knowledge ofCreoleness, As PeterHallwardhas remarked:"Thenationsloss is [...] Creoles gain."8 Insofaras Creoleheraldsa conditionof linguisticpostnationalismand denaturalizesmonolingualization(showing it to be an artificialarrestof languagetransitandexchange),it maybe saidto occupya uniquelinguistic Increasingly,Creole has emergedas an omterritorywithin Francophonie. nibusrubric,loosely appliedto hybridity,metissagey platformsof cross-culturalencounter,or to languageas a criticalcategoryof literaryhistory.Creole also remainsa name for traumaticlack. Markedby the Middle Passage, and the coarse commandsof human traffickersand plantation-owners, Creolecarriesa historyof stigmacomparableto that of pidgin translation Chinese.In Haun Saussys estimation,Chinesepidgin in nineteenth-century an exhibitionof "incompleteness[ . . .] translationwas,forthe grammarians, an unequalrelationshipbetweennormalspeechin the targetlanguageand the halting, misarticulated,or excessivespeech of the sourcelanguageit In Saussy'sreading,WalterBenjaminssacred,interlinearideal represents." of translation offers the possibility of revaluing pidgin because the word-for-wordliteralismauthorizesa translationfull of holes: interlinear's for- it makesaudibleandvisible- the incommensurability stands "Pidgin of languages.The discussionof Chinese,that"grammarless" language,gives pidgin its greatestrepresentationallicense."9Recuperatedin the guise of sacredtranslation,Creole,like Pidgin, maybe cast as a language"blessed" with the fullnessof aporia. ForDerrida,the aporianamesthe conceptualimpasseof deathlodged in the bodyof language.Beginningwith a phrase"IIy va d'uncertainpas [It involvesa certainstep/not;he goes along at a certainpace.]"Derridaasso- 3O2 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES dates the pas with a "recumbentcorpse"or limit-conditionbetween language and that which is other to itself:10 so-calledFrenchlanguage!' (A 10) Derridasconceptof aporia- heardin the "no,not,nichtykein"of alterity- is linkedto the politicsof monolingualismin Monolingualism ofthe Other:Or the Prosthesisof Origin(1996).11The books epigraphsfrom Glissantand AbdelkedirKhatibiattestto a rareengagementwith Francophonie as theoreticalterrain.Derrida,with tongue in cheek, competeswith Khatibifor title to the statelessstatusof the "Franco-Magrébin" subject.The hyphen signifiesall the problemsof national/linguisticunbelongingcharacteristic of post-IndependenceAlgerians;includingthe way in which Jews,Arabs and Frenchwere neighbored,yet separated,by the Frenchlanguage."This languagewill never be mine,"says Derridaof French,drawingfrom his own experienceof nationaldisenfranchisement the lesson that languageis loanedto communitiesof speakers."Theuntranslatable remains(as my law tells me) the poetic economyof the idiom"(D 56). Contraryto what one might expect, the prosthetic"other"in Derrida'stitle "monolingulismof the other,"is not polyglottism,but an aporiawithin ipseity,an estrangement in languageas such. For Derrida,untranslatability is the universal of names. predicate language So how might Derridas aporiadeconstructthe nationalistnominalism of languagenames?By locatingan always-priorotherwithin monolingualdiction,the aporialoosensthe nationalanchorfromthe languagename, wedging a politics of the subjectbetween the name of a nation and the name of a language.Blocking the automaticassociationof specifiedlanguage propertieswith the universalset of a given nation,Derridas aporia approximatesthe logicians"x"in the modernnominalistformula"Forany x, if x is a man,it is mortal,"which disablesthe universalqualifier"allmen are mortal"and relativizesthe human statusof the subjectin question.X mayor maynot be a manin the samewaythat FrancophonespeakerX may or may not be French.The contingencyof the subjectsuggestshere that Frenchspeakerswho areFrenchnationalsconstituteone possibleworldof Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 a Babel "fromand within itself. [...] the strangerat home, the invited or the one who is called.[...] This borderof translationdoes not pass amongvariouslanguages.It separatestranslationfrom itwithin one and the samelanguage.A self,it separatestranslatability certainpragmaticsthus inscribesthis borderin theveryinsideof the THEORIZING FRANCOPHONIE 303 Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 Frenchspeakersamongmany.Once the nationalpredicateis dislodged,no speakermaintainsexclusiveownershipof languageproperties;the right to languageis distributedmorefreelyas languageis classedas the propertyof x-many lease-holders. Abolishing the divides of inside/outside,guest/host, owner/tenant, names a comparatismthat neighborslanguages,nations,litFrancophonie is borand eratures, communitiesof speakers.This idea of "neighboring" rowed from Kenneth Reinhard,specificallyfrom his Levinasianunderstandingof a "comparativeliteratureotherwise than comparison[. . . ] a mode of readinglogically and ethicallyprior to similitude,a readingin which texts are not so much groupedinto "families"definedby similarity determinedby accidentalcontiguand difference,as into "neighborhoods" For Reinhard,treating encounter."12 and ethical isolation, ity,genealogical texts as neighbors"entailscreatinganamorphicdisturbancesin the network of perspectivalgenealogiesand intertextualrelations.That is, before texts can be compared,one text must be articulatedas the uncannyneighbor of the other;this is an assumptionof criticalobligation,indebtedness, secondarinessthat has nothing to do with influence,Zeitgeist,or cultural context"(KS 796). Departingfromphilologicaltradition,which arguesfor textualrelationbasedon sharedetymology,tropes,aesthetictastes,andhistoricaltrajectories,Reinhardproposesin their steada theoryof "traumatic "How [he asks]canwe re-approachthe traumaticproximityof proximity:" a text, beforeor beyondcomparisonand contextualization? Asymmetrical substitutionimplies that there is no originalcommon groundfor textual comparison,but only the traumaof originarynon-relationship,of a gap visible" betweenthe theoryandpracticeof readingthat is only retroactively (KS 804). Reinhard'snotion of "otherwisethan comparison,"shifts the problematicfromlanguagenomination(whatto call non-metropolitanFrench? that name?)to the ethicsof traumaticproximity.It is surely Is Francophonie not by chancethat love and traumaareconstitutiveof ethicalmilitancein the historyof Francophoneliterature.Aimé Césaires revolutionary"I am the unique lover"is a call to others in Cahiersd'un Retouraupays natal Love is the affect that breakscolonial racismand dependencyin Frantz FanonBlackSkin,WhiteMasks.Fanonenactsthe injunction"lovethy neighbor"in his constructof "The Jew and I." ("Wheneveryou hear anyone abusethe Jews,pay attention,becausehe is talkingaboutyou. [...] And I found that he was universallyright- by which I meantthat I was answerable in my body and in my heartfor what was done to my brother."13In MargueriteDuras'sL'Amantintimacyproducestraumaticself-otheringas 304 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES When I am growingup- shortlybeforemy nativeland throwsoff the colonialyoke- while the man still has the right to four legitimate wives,we girls,big and little, have at our commandfour languages to expressdesire before all that is left for us is sighs and Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 the "raced" causeof desire.In JeanGenet's Un captifamoureux the gay outlaw neighborsthe Palestinians,falling in love with the injusticethat has been done to them.The narcissisticturnof phrase"Ilsont le droitpoureux puisqueje les aime"("theyhave right on their side becauseI love them" expressesa bond of obligationbeyond contingency,a militantdesirethat mobilizesself-lovein the serviceof other-love.And AbdelkedirKhatibis amourbilingueidentifiesthe aporiaof untranslatability as aphrodisiacand cut of language. Classics of Algerian fiction have been profoundlycaught up in the figurationof a traumaticproximitysynonymouswith the post-Independence crisis of a nationallanguage.14It is for the love of Nedjma (whose namemeans"star" in Arabic),thatAlgeria'sproto-revolutionary epicis made. Her eponymousform lepolygoneétoile mapsthe aporeticplace-holder, the revolutionaryeventto come,thatwill destroyempireand markoff prefrompost- colonialAlgeria.Nedjmaharksbackto the archaicpoliticalformation of the Keblout,an idealizedconfraternity(builton the shardsof a destroyedcountry)that representsa futurestate that is neither Ottoman nor French.The Kebloutposits a group subjectivityoutside kinship,polygamous,or polyandrous(one wife, multiplehusbands).Nedjmaherselfis the fruitof prostitution,a womanwith multiplemen, andin herturn,she is an enchantresswith specialpowersof love, condemningfour men to burn with Utopianlonging. She is presentedin a fantasy,alwaysalreadyin the gaze of the other a husband,a Negro voyeur.This hall of mirrorsproduces a model of grouplove, or marriagemultiplethat is refractedin the revolutionaryfuture of a polyglot nation of the Maghreb. "There is a RédaBensmaïamaintains."Itdenouncesa system Maghrebianliterature," it a that,by giving voice, made it lose its language.The questionit facesis not "Who will have the last word?"but rather"Inwhat languagewill this world be pronounced?"15 If'Nedjmais readas a novelaboutthe ill-starreddestinyof a postcolonial nation,born of languageloss, rape and conquest,illegitimacyand shame, contestedpaternityand quasi-incestuouslove,then Assia Djebars Fantasia might be classedas Nedjmas sequel.FantasiacontinuesNedjmdsextension of polyandryfromlove to language: THEORIZING FRANCOPHONIE 305 The "fourlanguages"of desireparallelthe four majorlanguagechoices of postcolonialAlgeria:Arabic(splitbetweenclassicaland demotic),Kabyle, Frenchand English (which supplantedRussianby the earlyseventiesas a languageof technicaltraining).Neighbored,yetjoinedby aporias,the text's multiplelanguagesproposenew phylumsof comparison.PartI, titled"The Captureof the City OR Love-Letters,"introducesa logic of interchangeabilitybetween conquestand love, echoed in the alternancebetween historicism(therestitutionof Pelissiers lost chronicleof the 1845 cavemassacre of the Berberinsurrectionists,GeneralBugeaud'smemoirof a second fumigation,coveredup until 1913), and romance(a woman, experimenting with sexualfreedom after the Algerian Revolutionprotects a love letter from unwantedperusalonly to have it stolen by a beggarwoman).The braidedgenresof romanceandhistoryreinforcethe duet of love and death. Invadersapproachin the guise of lovers,only to be seducedin their turn, and condemnedto die in a "mortalembrace"(F 8, 15). Conquestis rape infernalmachine"of propaencodedwithin printculturevia "Gutenberg's in rendered the enemy'sown hand,are Accounts of atrocity, ganda(F 33). lovinglycurated.And a young Algerianwoman defies Islamicpatriarchal interdictionby crying/writingloveletters("l'amour s'écrit")(F 214). Djebar's the become love of foundingmythsof a new political allegories enraptured formationin whichArabicandEuropeaneruditionmustbe violentlyelided. The proximitybetweenrapeand love is consistentlydeployed,as if to underscoretheir commonroot in emotionalviolence.Djebar'stextualneighboringof St. Augustine("theAlgerian,"whose penitent autobiographyis "bornealongby his ecstaticsearchfor God"),andIbn Khaldoun(authorof is madeposwrittenin Arabictitled Taarijor "Identity") an autobiography sibleby the factthat both writein a languageof conquest"imposedby rape as much as by love" (F 216). Even the mangledEnglish translationof the title oiL amour,la fantasia (as Fantasia:An Algerian Cavalcadein the Heinemannedition),repeatsthe violent aporiaof the rape-lovestructure. Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 moans:Frenchfor secretmissives;Arabicfor our stifledaspirations towards God-the-Father,the God of the religions of the Book; whichtakesus backto the paganidols-mother-godsLybico-Berber - of pre-IslamicMecca.The fourthlanguage,for all females,young or old, cloisteredor half-emancipated,remainsthat of the body:the body which [. . .] in fits of hope or despair,and unable to read or write, seeks some unknownshore as destinationfor its messageof love.16 306 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES Philologyis, literallythe love of words,but as a disciplineit acquires a quasi-scientificintellectualand spiritualprestigeat variousperiods in all of the majorculturaltraditions,includingthe Westernand the Arabic-Islamictraditionsthat have framedmy own development. Sufficeit to recallbrieflythat in the Islamictradition,knowledge is premisedupona philologicalattentionto languagebeginning with the Koran,the uncreatedword of God (and indeed the word "Koran"itself means reading),and continuingthrough the emergence of scientificgrammarin Khalilibn Ahmad and Sibawayhto the rise of jurisprudenceifiqh) and ta'wil,jurisprudentialhermeneuticsand interpretation,respectively.17 Saidmakesa sweepingpassthroughsystemsof humanisticeducationbased on philologyin Arabuniversitiesof southernEuropeand North Africain the 12thcentury,Judaictraditionin Andalusia,North Africa, the Levant and Mesopotamia,then onto Vico, and Nietzsche.He extols a humanism of readingand interpretation"groundedin the shapesof words as bearers of reality,a realityhidden, misleading,resistant,and difficult.The science of reading,in otherwords,is paramountfor humanisticknowledge"(HDC 58). Criticism JustasHumanismandDemocratic openlyengagesLeo Spitzers Leo rather than Auerbachthis time!), so philologicallegacy (yes, Spitzer does the 2002 essay"Livingin Arabic,"which invitesbeing readin tandem Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 The suppressionof Tamour"in the Frenchtitle, and the insertionof "cavalcade"(a troop of horsemen)in the English subtitle,effectivelyimposes War in the place of Love. Through this perverseexchangeof minus and plus, the algorithmof traumacharacteristicof colonial transferenceand counter-transference is calculated. describes the traumaticproximityof violence and love, Neighboring manifestas explodedholes in languageor translationgaps. Such spacesof non-relationcan be condemnedas signs of profanation,but they are also These susceptibleto beingveneratedas signsof sacredincommensurability. aporiasaredirectlyrelevantto the problemof how a languagenamesitself because they disruptpredication;the processby which verbalattributes coalescein a propernameor noun.The difficultprocessof de-predication, otherwiseknown as secularhermeneutics,is one of the premiertasks of philology,as conceivedby the late EdwardSaid in his final writings.In a chapterof HumanismandDemocraticCriticismdevotedto "The Returnof Philology,"Said wrote: THEORIZINGFRANCOPHONIE 307 is the means,perhapsthe consciousnesswe have for providingthat kindof finallyantinomianor oppositionalanalysisbetweenthe space of wordsand theirvariousoriginsand deploymentsin physicaland social place, from text to actualizedsite of either appropriationor resistance,to transmission,to readingand interpretation,from private to public,from silence to explicationand utterance,and back again,as we encounterour own silence and mortality all of it occurringin the world, on the ground of daily life and history and hopes, and the searchfor knowledgeandjustice,and then perhaps also for liberation.(HDC 83) Said and Spitzer seem to have entered an imaginaryscene of dramatic stichomythia,that couldwell havemadea placefor Derridaas well insofar as what holds the exchangetogetheris a commonfocus on how wordsand word-spacingconstitutea grammarof life anddeath,or groundingandunhomingwithin language.As if programmingSaid'slife-long commitment to a lexiconof exile affordingexistentialsuccor,Spitzerdelightsin the way Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 with Spitzers 1934 essay"LearningTurkish."Publishedin Turkishin the Istanbul-basedphilosophicaljournal Varlik[Being], Spitzers articleplays off the epistemologicalmodalitiesof "living"and "learning"a language.18 Spitzercommentson the ontologicalimplicationsof sequencingin Turkish. AnticipatingSaid'scallto gleansignificancefromthe relationalgapsof wordby word analysis,Spitzeremphasizeshow the consecutiveunfolding ("oneby one")of an actionmimicsthe natureof experience,therebyenlivening narrationin a uniquely"humanand subjectiveway."Spitzeris drawn to modes of expressionthat seem wreathedin scare-quotes;that somehow mark"whatis happening"as things happen.Positivesand negativesin apposition performthis functionwell. Typicalof interrogativeenunciations (such as "he saw me, or did he not?"or "Did he or did he not open the door?"),this syntacticdoubling is hardlyunique to Turkish,but its frequencyin Turkishusageepitomizes,for Spitzer,a habitof self-questioning The termgibi he sugthat initiatesan otheringof self within subjectivity. gests,whetherattachedto verbformsorjust thrownout at random,indexes the speaker'sloss of convictionin his own words."Wordsno longersignify a definiteeventbut carrythe ambiguityof comparisonwithin them."Gibi, then, is a partof speechtailoredfor the philologist,for it calls attentionto In his conclusionto "The Rehow each word internalizescomparability. turn to Philology,"Said also fixes on the "spaceof words"as the aporiaof comparison.Humanism,he maintained, 3O8 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 in which the grammarof mitigation- the generoussprinklingof equivalent termsfor "buts"and "howevers" throughTurkishspeech affordsfelicitousrelief"tothe thinkingman fromthe pressuresof this difficultlife." "In this decreasingvoice,"Spitzer asserts,"I see our humility.For an instant, the human spirit descendsto pessimismto rid itself of numbness, triumphingoverdifficultythroughreason.Thus a smallword like 'but/ or 'yet/ though a mere grammaticaltool of negation,becomes an emotional manifestationloadedwith the weight of life. In these smallwords,we see humanitydealwith adversity." Spitzertravelsdownto the micrologicalstratum of speech-particlesto observe"life"swimmingagainstthe currentof "death."Grammaticalmarkersof doubt or negationare cast as valvesthat releasethe pressurethat builds up in the courseof fighting to stay alive, rallyingthe subjects determinationto go on. ForSaid,these particlescomprisea syntaxof traumaticincommensurability; they contourthe aporiasof militantlove. Saidian-Spitzerianphilologybearscruciallyon the problemof theobecauseit acknowledgesthe extent to which ArabicrizingFrancophonie in the guise of aporias- exerts invisible pressureon French. If Creole challengedthe predicationof Frenchon the myth of monolingualunity(as did its Rabelaisianantecedent),Arabicchallengesthe predicationof French on a myth of nationalunity itself built upon a myth of France'scolonial empirein North Africa and the Middle East. Arabichas returnedto the Frenchcapitalas a largelyunwelcomeimmigrantneighbor.In the larger field of Francophonelanguagepolitics,Arabiclooms largeas an uncanny of Francophonie. One might venture presencepromisingthe défrançisation an analogy:that the situationof Arabicwith respectto Frenchstandsas the linguisticequivalentof the headscarfcontroversyin relationto civic secularism;Arabicbecomesthe name for the crisisof theopoeticsin a secular frame. In reflectionson Arabicthat one can only speculatemight havebeen the subjectof a futurebook, Said experimentedwith using philology to rearticulatethe sacredotherwise.As if awareof Ken Reinhardsconviction that the unconsciousassertsitself in languagethroughre-articulation,Said a languagethat comesfromthe outside, soughtto "respeakor repunctuate" "the marks of its desires and cruel imperatives."19 Rather bearing strange than dodge the issue of how a secularlanguagecopeswith the mandateof neighboringa sacredlanguage,Said,at the veryend of his life, took up the problemof "livingin Arabic,"a taskmadedifficultby a split betweenclassical (fusshd)and demotic (amiya)that makesit impossibleto experience THEORIZING FRANCOPHONIE 309 Since in Islamthe Koranis the Word of God, it is thereforeimpossible everfully to grasp,though it must repeatedlybe read.But the factthat it is in languagealreadymakesit incumbenton readersfirst of all to tryto understandits literalmeaningwith a profoundawarenessthatothersbeforethem haveattemptedthe samedauntingtask. So the presenceof othersis givenas a communityof witnesseswhose availabilityto the contemporaryreaderis retainedin the form of a chain, each witness dependingto some degree on an earlierone. The comThis systemof interdependentreadingsis called"isnad." its of the the mon goal is to tryto approach ground text, principalor usu/yalthoughthere must alwaysbe a componentof personalcomin Arabic.(Withmitmentand extraordinary effort,calledHjtihad" out a knowledgeof Arabic,it is difficultto knowthat"ijtihad'derives fromthe sameroot as the now notoriouswordjihad,which does not mainlymean holy war but rathera primarilyspiritualexertionon behalf of the truth). It is not surprisingthat since the fourteenth centurytherehasbeena robuststrugglegoingon aboutwhetherijtihad is permissible,to whatdegree,andwithinwhatlimits.(HDC 68-69) As this passageaffirms,Said was committedto taking the predicate out of Arabicas the nameof a languagein westernparlance.In the "terror" U.S. in 2005, Arabicremainshigh on the list of languagesguiltyby association, as one of the languagesmentionedin an articlein TheNew YorkTimes: "Incounterterrorism cases,morethan 123,000 hoursof audiorecordingsin languagescommonly associatedwith terrorismhave not been translated since the Sept. 11 attacks,amountingto 20 percentof the total material, the reportfound."20Referenceto Arabicas a terrorlanguageoccursherein the contextof what might be called"Translationgate," by which I referto the affairof whistleblowerSibel Edmonds,a Turkishtranslatordismissed Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 daily life in the divine form of the language.Though one of Said'sclear intentionsin the essayis to reformArabicso that it might betterdealwith the sacred/secularsplit in a single tongue, his greatestconcern,it would attribution seem,was to use philologyto de-translatethe "fundamentalist" to its philological of Arabic.He recalls,for example,the term "al-quaida" or "base"of language),just as in Hufunction(as the word for "grammar," manismand DemocraticCriticism,he reclaimsjihad for secular usage, contextualizingit as commitmentto "isnad"or hermeneuticalcommunity: 3io COMPARATIVELITERATURE STUDIES New YorkUniversity Notes 1. Réda Bensmaïa,"Francophonie," YaleFrenchStudies103 (2003)19. 2. SamuelWeber,"ATouch of Translation:On WalterBenjaminsTask of the Transla- tor,'"Nation, Language,and the Ethics ofTranslation, eds. Sandra Bermann and Michael Wood (Princeton:PrincetonUP), 2005. 3. Jean-Luc Godard,interviewwith Manohla Dargis: "Godards Metaphysicsof the Movies,"TheNew YorkTimes(November21, 2004 Arts and Leisure)22. 4. Panurge,the polyglotstrangerof Chapter9 of Rabelaiss Pantagruel, speaksnine modern languages,(includingHebrew,Greek,Latin, and two inventedlanguages,Antipodean and Lanternois).ForTerenceCave,he representsthe "oralpolyglotas a new phenomenon." "What emerges is something unexpected,"Cave maintains:"a dramatizationof the way foreignlanguageswere apprehended,from a gallo-centricangle,in 1532;the languagemap an intelligentrepresentative of that periodmight draw;the pleasureof oralcompetencethat outdoesscribalachievements.Cave arguesthat Panurge'slanguagemap is that of a traveler/ adventurer. He eschewsdialectsin favorof languagesthat aredifferentiatedby border."The as comparedwith Pathelin'saulanguagemap is both differentiatedand extra-territorial, tochthonousmêléeof linguisticforms,where even the Flemish,the Bretonand (of course) the Latin havebeen gallicized."See,TerenceCave,"Panurge,Pathelin,and Other Polyglots , in Lapidary Inscriptions:RenaissanceEssaysfor Donald A. Stone,Jr, eds. Barbara C. Bown and JerryC. Nash (Lexington,Kentucky:FrenchForumPublishers,1991) 172, 176. My thanksto Nancy Regaladofor bringingthis essayto my attention. 5. This casefor one language,has not necessarilyprecludedthe casefor manyliteratures. The pluralizationof Frenchliteratures("leslittératuresfrancophones") has been exploited by Frenchgovernmentpolicyas a strategyfor advancingculturalinfluenceand competition (especiallyusefulin curtailingAnglophonedominance).The phrase"littératures d'expression Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 by the FBI aftershe went publicwith a descriptionof the disastrousstateof translationserviceswithin U.S. intelligencebureaus. In his concertedeffortsto de-predicateArabicas a languageof terrorism, Saidwanderedinto the nominalistquandaryof how to namelanguages otherwise.The need to disruptthe deep structurallawsby which languages are named after nations and peoples complementedSaids desireto contributea philologicalhumanismno longerhobbledby nationalism,and no of sacredspeech. longershyof facingdownthe theocraticself-empowerment Philology,in Saids renovationof Leo Spitzer,is no longerconceivedmerely as the providential"connect"of languagesin and throughthe mutualdiscovery of a common etymon; it is rather,a coefficient of aporia;or the traumaticneighboringof languages.The practiceof translationin this context becomescrucialnot only to the heuristicsof Francophonie \ but also to the inventionof a new comparativeliteraturethat finds its namein a zone of in-translation. THEORIZING FRANCOPHONIE 311 Journal of Criticism 11.2 (1998) 455. 9. Haun Saussy, The Great Wallof Discourseand OtherAdventuresin CulturalChina (Cam- UP, 2001) 78-79. bridge,Mass:HarvardEast Asian Monographs/Harvard trans.ThomasDutoit (Stanford:StanfordUP, 1993):6. Fur10. JacquesDerrida,Aporiasy ther referencesto this workwill appearin the text abbreviatedA. of origin"sinceit was coined 11. The wordnégritudeoffersa good exampleof a "prosthesis by Aimé Césairein Martinique;a place that had no single Africanlanguageon which to groundit. 12. KennethReinhard,"Kantwith Sade, Lacanwith Levinas,"ModernLanguageNotes 110.4 (1995) 785. 13. FrantzFanon,BlackSkins,WhiteMasks,trans.CharlesLam Markmann.(New York: GroveWeidenfeld,1969)122. NationsOr,theInven14. On this theme,see Chapter1 of RédaBensmaïasExperimental tion of theMaghreb(Princeton:PrincetonUP, 2003). in A New Historyof FrenchLiterature 15. RédaBensmaïa,"The Schoolof Independence" ed. Denis Hollier(Cambridge:HarvardUP, 1989) 1022.Bensmaïasfurtherquestions:"Does Is nationalitya category everyworkwrittenin Frenchbelongipso factoto Frenchliterature? that appliesto a literarywork as it does to the individualwho producesit?"are of equal relevanceto the concernsof this essay. 16. Assia Djebar,Fantasia:An AlgerianCavalcadeTrans.Dorothy S. Blair,(Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,1985, 1993) 180. Furtherreferencesto this work will appearin the text abbreviatedF. 17. EdwardSaid, Humanismand DemocraticCriticism(New York:ColumbiaUP, 2003) 58. Furtherreferencesto this workwill appearin the text abbreviatedHDC. 18. Leo Spitzer,"LearningTurkish"in Varlik[Being] 1934. Translationby TulayAtak. 19. Eric Lichtblau,TheNew YorkTimes,September26, 2004. Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/cls/article-pdf/42/4/297/1360528/complitstudies_42_4_297.pdf by guest on 07 February 2022 - often seen as neocolonialin française" implication articulatesthis paradoxicalextension of the Frenchexceptionto the world. 6. EdouardGlissant,Poeticsof Relation,trans.Betsy Wing (Ann Arbor:Universityof MichiganPress,1997)119. Furtherreferencesto this workwill appearin the text abbreviated PR. 7. Jean Bernabé,PatrickChamoiseau,RaphaëlConfiant, Elogede la CréolitéEdition trans.M.B. Teleb-Khyar(Paris:Gallimard,1989) 88-90. Emphabilinguefrançais/anglais, sis in italicsas appearsin the original. 8. Peter Hallward,"EdouardGlissantbetweenthe Singularand the Specific,"TheYale