From Colonial Histories to Post Colonial Societies: Placing the Maghrib at the Center of the Twentieth Century
April 6 - 7, 2009
University of Michigan
April 9 - 10, 2009
University of Minnesota
Historians from Europe and the United States have often treated North Africa as marginal to the central dramas of the twentieth century. This conference suggests that the view from Morocco, Algeria, or Tunisia might provide a privileged perspective on the unfolding of the recent past. Whether it be in consideration of the various modes of European imperial control, of local forms of accommodation and resistance to colonialism, or in the linkages between the histories of decolonization in the Maghrib and the challenges faced by successor states and post-colonial societies in the region, the experiences of the peoples of North Africa provide a useful comparative basis for contemporary reflection on the major turning points of the last hundred years. This conference brings scholars from North Africa to meet with specialists and students from two U.S. universities for a fruitful exchange of views and research agendas.
This conference is a joint collaboration with the University of Michigan. Conference is organized by Joshua Cole, Department of History, University of Michigan, and Patricia Lorcin, Department of History, University of Minnesota.
To obtain copies of these papers please email igsevent@umn.edu.
April 9: Sessions 1 and 2
Session 1 (10:00am-12:00pm) – Room B & C, Andersen Library
Ruptures and Continuities during the Colonial Period in North Africa
Karima Direche, Researcher, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, “Writing the Past: Uses and Abuses of History in Post-Independent Algeria”
Julia Clancy-Smith, Department of History, University of Arizona, “Ruptures? Husaynid-Colonial Tunisia, c. 1870-1914"
Commentator: Joëlle Vitiello, Macalester College
Break
Session 2 (2:00pm-4:00pm) – Room B & C, Andersen Library
The Metropole/Colony Relationship and its Transnational Contexts
Daho Djerbal, Department of History, University of Algiers-Bouzareah: “The Effects of the 1956 Crisis on the War of Algeria”
James McDougall, Department of History, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London: “The Politics of Religion and State Secularism between Algeria and Metropolitan France, c.1905-51”
Commentator: Ragui Assaad, University of Minnesota
April 10: Sessions 3 and 4
Session 3 (10:00am-12:00pm) – Room B & C, Andersen Library
The Politics of Religion in Postcolonial North Africa
Mohammed El Ayadi, Department of Social Science and Political History, Ain-Chock University, Morocco: "Religious Actors and the Political Domain"
Hassan Rachik, Faculty of Juridical, Economic and Social Sciences, Casablanca, Morocco: "Arab Nationalism, Ideology, and Islam"
Commentator: Daniel Schroeter, University of Minnesota
Break
Session 4 (2:00 - 4:00 pm) - Room B & C, Andersen Library
Postcolonial Regimes and Ideologies in the Maghrib
Abderrahmane Moussaoui, Department of Anthropology, Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France : "Between Violence and Jihad"
Mohammed Hachemaoui, Menton, Sciences Po: "Political Representation in Algeria: Between Mediation and Predation"
Commentator: William Beeman, University of Minnesota
Event is co-sponsored by the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota.