"Madness and the Night of the Poetic Community"

Dr. Raji Vallury of the University of New Mexico, whose research looks at the relationship between literature and politics, presents a lecture "Madness and the Night of the Poetic Community."

Lecture examines the poetic treatment of the political community in the novel Century of Locusts (2006) by Malika Mokeddem. Free and open to the public, the lecture begins at 7 p.m. in Room 216 of Buckman Hall. A reception will follow.

Century of Locusts won several literary awards in France including the prix Littré. Set in Algeria during the first half of the 20th-Century and written in a lyrical style, the book tells the story of a nomadic poet's journey through the desert and his encounters with a swarm of locusts as he searches for his wife's murderer. The book also depicts Bedouin life changed by French colonialism.

Vallury is an assistant professor of French at the UNM and her expertise includes 19th and 20th century French Literature, literary theory, and gender and postcolonial studies. She currently is working on a book manuscript titled Metaphors of Invention and Dissension: The Politics of National Allegory in the Algerian Novel.

Those with specific inquiries about the Rhodes presentation can contact Dr. Alison V. Halasz at 901-843-3580 or halasza@rhodes.edu