Critiquing Subaltern Culture in the Discourse of Abdelfattah Kilito A Diagnostic Reading in Light of Homi Bhabha’s Theory

Abstract

This study begins with the problematic of diagnosing cultural subalternity in modern Arab critical discourse, based on the premise that subalternity manifests as an epistemic, aesthetic, and symbolic dependency on Western models. In this framework, Arabic texts—whether classical or modern—are often read through externally imposed criteria that do not belong to their cultural horizon, thereby reducing them to mere material used to validate Western paradigms. The study takes the intellectual project of the Moroccan critic Abdelfattah Kilito as its subject, employing a diagnostic reading methodology, and drawing on Homi Bhabha’s concepts of cultural hybridity and the Third Space as its interpretive paradigam. The aim is to uncover how Kilito appropriates Western theories not to replicate them, but to deconstruct their authority and re-read the Arab literary heritage from within its own cultural contexts.

The research seeks to contribute to the development of an independent critical framework capable of interrogating both Arab heritage and Western theory through a critique that transcends the binary of imitation or rupture. It proposes a hybrid, postcolonial discourse that redefines the relationship between center and margin as one of negotiation, interpretation, and reconfiguration.