A decade-long civil conflict that leaves an estimated 200,000 people dead is no laughing matter. Yet, throughout Algeria's 'dark decade' of the 1990s residents of the war-torn North African country told jokes. Previous scholarship on humour during this period has asserted that Algerians overwhelmingly used comedy to shore up resistance against the political agents,...

In the middle of the Algerian War of Independence, the French military and government launched an elaborate campaign to 'liberate' Algerian Muslim women. The timing of its inception indicated one of the strongest motivations behind this elaborate series of policies. Indeed, French propagandists and officials, prompted by the appearance on the international stage of...