In this talk, Dr. Lewis Cusato analyzes how globalization affects cultural production and reception, especially in the context of francophone North Africa. This project specifically considers the case of Malika Oufkir and Michèle Fitoussi's Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail, which was chosen for Oprah's Book Club in 2001. By comparing the marketing strategies and paratexts associated with the French and American versions of the book, we can learn much about the transnational movements of postcolonial Maghrebi cultural icons, and the ways their representations, reception, and meanings shift when they travel. "From Morocco to Oprah" reads Oufkir's tale alongside some of the most prominent ways that globalization inserts itself into cultural production and interpretation alike.
Dr. Lewis Cusato is the Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of the Global Studies Institute at Ohio Wesleyan University.
