My research reflects a definite progression in my thinking about French and francophone literature. At first, I was fascinated by the circumstances under which francophone Algerian female authors came to writing. Silence and its sociopolitical and religious nuances as well as their practice provided the basis for my analyses of these authors' writings as a transgressive act. Malika Mokeddem, for example, modified the autobiography, the fairy tale, the third-person narrative, and the suspense novel genres in describing the colonized and post-independence Algeria of the 20th century. Moreover, I considered the imposed use of French, the official language of Algeria for 130 years, to be a political strategy for controlling the colonized subjects of the French Empire.
Subsequently, I investigated the often autobiographical accounts of 1990s Algerian terrorism written by expatriate francophone female writers including Latifa Ben Mansour, Leïla Marouane, and Fatima Gallaire. What I found were violent images of physically- and mentally-abused women balanced by these same protagonists' desire to recover their health, even at the cost of reinventing themselves. My articles on Ben Mansour's and Marouane's novels address the themes of psychological and physical healing after overwhelming tragedy and trauma. The departure of Marouane's novel from the traditional, chronological narrative was a secondary point of interest for me.
I have continued to study portrayals of the Algerian war for independence, the civil war in 1990s Algeria, the First and Second World Wars, and the ongoing anti-terrorism campaign in France. My research has once again caused me to contemplate the limits of the autobiographical genre, such as the personal journal and the memoir, for conveying the truth and making peace with atrocities from the past. In my most recent work, I discussed Clémence Boulouque's memoir about her father's death. I have also analyzed the figure of the French soldier in 20th and 21st century autobiographical French novels by Henri Barbusse, André Chamson, and René-Nicolas Ehni while relating the war experience to the sociopolitical ideas of manhood and constructing the French nation.