Through readings of some of the best-known texts in Algerian literature in French, Woodhull both challenges the separation between French and Francophone literatures and cultures in the academy and explores the ways in which "femininity" has been represented in the texts of North African and French writers since the mid-1950s.

Winifred Woodhull is assistant professor of literature at the University of California in San Diego. She has published numerous articles on twentieth-century literature, critical theory, and cultural studies.