Khatibi and the Transcolonial Turn
Khatibi and the Transcolonial Turn
The Palestinian question has played a seminal if neglected role in Abdelkébir Khatibi’s writings, from the central notion of a “plural Maghreb” to his musings on language, colonialism, and “pensée-autre,” an expression he initially coined in response to the massacre of Palestinian fighters by Jordanian troops in 1970. This chapter examines the central importance of the Palestinian question in Khatibi’s writings, from his 1974 polemic Vomito blanco to his exchanges with Jacques Hassoun and Jacques Derrida in the 1980s and 90s, and argues that Khatibi was a precursor in what we might call the transcolonial turn.
Keywords: Khatibi, postcolonialism, decolonisation, transnationalism, transcolonial, aesthetics, sociology, Islam, Maghreb, Morocco, travel, stranger, art, sign, literature, philosophy, translation, bilingualism, Mediterranean, language, performativity, Palestine, alterity, Derrida, Hassoun, Segalen, Tanizaki, Japan, semiology, carpet, spiritual, poetics, ethics