Identity and Language in the works of Grazia Deledda

After a brief summary of the recent theoretical context of masculinity studies and the notion of identity, this article will analyze the construction of masculinity in a novel by one of Morocco’s most notable authors, Tahar Ben Jelloun’s L'Homme rompu. It will refer to this theoretical context in order to highlight the full weight of discursive pressures that are exerted on the individual. It will offer an in-depth analysis of masculinity and identity in the novel and, with reference to its unofficial sister-novel, Simone de Beauvoir’s La Femme rompue, will question to what extent the existentialist concepts of individual choice and subjectivity are still valid in the current theoretical climate.

This article examines the way Michael Roes redefines friendship in his novel Geschichte der Freundschaft (The History of Friendship) by usig texts by other writers and philosophers. After placing Roes’ novel in its historical and cultural context, the article compares Geschichte der Freundschaft with Tahar Ben Jelloun's novel Partir / Leaving Tangier (2006). The final section of the article then interprets Roes’ use of intertexts on the subject of male-male friendships. The focus is on Roes’ appropriation of texts by Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, which throws light on his treatment of the novel’s central theme, friendships between men, and homosexual relationships.

This article examines a Welsh choir’s visit to Franco’s Spain at the invitation of the Francoist organisation Educación y Descans (Education and Leisure). At first the invitation sparked a debate in the local press on the principles of travelling to a country that was at the time shunned by the international community. The choir itself came from an area which had provided volunteers for the international brigades, but which was also co-incidentally involved with the establishment of an international music festival in the name of peace and understanding. The article examines the account of the choir’s journey to Spain, and discusses how the image of the Franco regime is portrayed in that account. The article also analyses to what extent the choir’s visit was used as propaganda by Franco as his foreign policy shifted with the advent of the Cold War.