Situated at the crossroads of queer theory and postcolonial studies,
Hybrid Anxieties analyzes the intertwined and composite
aspects of identities and textual forms in the wake of the
French-Algerian War (1954-1962). C. L. Quinan argues that the war
precipitated a dynamic in which a contestation of hegemonic
masculinity occurred alongside a production of queer modes of
subjectivity, embodiment, and memory that subvert norms. Innovations
in literature and cinema were also directly impacted by the long and
difficult process of decolonization, as the war provoked a rethinking
of politics and aesthetics. The novels, films, and poetry analyzed in
Hybrid Anxieties trace this imbrication of content and form,
demonstrating how a postwar fracturing had both salutary and
injurious effects, not only on bodies and psyches but also on
artistic forms.
Adopting a queer
postcolonial perspective, Hybrid Anxieties adds a new impulse
to the question of how to rethink hegemonic notions of gender,
sexuality, and nationality, thereby opening up new spaces for
considering the redemptive and productive possibilities of
negotiating life in a postcolonial context. Without losing sight of
the trauma of this particularly violent chapter in history, Hybrid
Anxieties proposes a new kind of hybridity that, however anxious
and anticipatory, emphasizes the productive forces of a queer desire
to deconstruct teleological relationships between past, present, and
future.