Biography

Lia Brozgal is Professor of French and Francophone Studies. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty in 2008, she was an appointed lecturer in History and Literature at Harvard University. In 2019 and 2022, she was visiting professor at Bryn Mawr’s Institut d’Avignon (France). Her research and teaching encompass a variety of topics in contemporary French and North African literature, film, culture, and history. She is the author of Absent the Archive: Cultural Traces of a Massacre in Paris (17 October 1961) (Liverpool UP, 2020) and Against Autobiography: Albert Memmi and the Production of Theory (U Nebraska Press, 2013). In collaboration with Sara Kippur (Wellesley College), she is co-editor of Being Contemporary: French Literature, Culture and Politics Today (Liverpool UP, 2015).

Her work promoting Middle Eastern and North African francophone literature in translation includes the omnibus collection originally edited in French by Leïla Sebbar, A Jewish Childhood in the Muslim Mediterranean (co-edited with Rebecca Glasberg, UC Press, 2023)—named a finalist for the 2023 National Jewish Book Awards, and the 1938 Tunisian novella Ninette of Sin Street (co-edited and introduced with Sarah Stein [UCLA], Stanford UP, 2017). She is the author of essays on North African literature and cinema, beur cultural productions, chronicles of the Holocaust in North Africa, and Judeo-Maghrebi literature and film.

Education

• Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
• B.A. in French, Chatham College

Publications

• “Memmi, romancier, en pratique et en théorie.” In “Jean Amrouche et Albert Memmi: Portraits croisés.” Special issue of Apulée. Ed. Guy Dugas (2021): 386-388.
• “Seeing Through Race in French Cinema.” L’Esprit Créateur. Special issue: Race and The Aesthetic in French and Francophone Cultures. 59.2 (2019): 12–24.
• “Gros plan sur le 17 octobre 1961: Violence coloniale, cinéma documentaire et le sujet algérien.” In Représentations de le la guerre d’indépendance algérienne. Ed. Maya Boutaghou. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2019. 99-114.
• “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Restraint. Judeo-Tunisian Narratives of Occupation.” In The Holocaust and North Africa: New Research. Eds. Aomar Boum and Sarah Stein. Stanford UP, 2018. 168-184.
• “The Critical Pulse of the Contre-enquête: Kamel Daoud on the Maghrebi Novel In French.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. Special issue on the Contemporary Maghrebi Novel in French. 20.1 (2016) 37-46.
• “In the Absence of the Archive (Paris, October 17, 1961).” South Central Review 31.1 (Spring 2014) 34-54.
• “Are We Post-Francophone Yet? Coming to Terms with Dissatisfaction.” In Francophone Cultures and Geographies of Identity. Eds. Adlai Murdoch and Zuszsanna Fagyal. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013.
• “Du jeu dans le texte: nouvelles pistes de lecture.” Littérature et jeu: des enjeux essentiels. Ed. Samir Marzouki. Series: Documents pour l’Histoire des Francophonies 28. Peter Lang, 2013. 81-86.
• “When Good Sentiments Make for ‘Bad’ Cinema: Reconsidering Allegory in Un été à la Goulette.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 17.1 (Winter 2013) 28-37.
• “La Banlieue to the Moon: Rachid Djaïdani’s Displacement of Paris.” Contemporary French Civilization 35.2 (2011) 87-109.
• “Blindness, the Visual and Ekphrastic Impulses. Albert Memmi Colors in the Lines.” French Studies: New Ekphrastic Poetics (Special Issue). 64.3 (July 2010) 317-328.
• “Hostages of Authenticity: Paul Smaïl, Azouz Begag and the Invention of the Beur Author.” French Forum 34.2 (Spring 2009) 113-130.