JHI Undergraduate Fellow
Celine Hajj Sleiman is entering her fourth year as an English specialist at the University of Toronto. She has a variety of interests, including Early Modern poetry, psychoanalytic theory, and twentieth-century Middle Eastern literature. She has recently taken an interest in francophone literature as well, and has been enjoying the comparative study of texts in translation. She is especially interested in the relationship between morality and language, and the influence of literature as a source of cross-cultural connection. In her third year, Celine took part in the Scholars-in-Residence program at the Jackman Institute, and worked as a research assistant for the John Galt project. She intends to continue pursuing a career in academia.
Fellowship Research Project—The Imagination in Exile: Albert Cossery's Egyptian Underground
I propose a comprehensive literary analysis of the works of twentieth-century EgyptianFrench writer Albert Cossery. This will include comparative studies with selected works by his Arab and francophone contemporaries that pertain to the themes of absence and violence, mockery and indolence—the politics of social exile. Cossery was obsessed with the underbelly of polite society, with the truths that might be revealed in the absence of civility. These are the truths I aim to unveil and interpret in my writings. Though Cossery experienced a vibrant age for both French and Middle Eastern literature, recent scholarship seems inattentive to his influence, and I would to fill that absence with a complete, intersectional study of his works.