M Haleh
@MuriamDavis
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Historian of 🇩🇿 @UCSC | @meriponline @jadaliyya |📖Markets of Civilization: Islam and Racial Capitalism in Algeria @DukePress | history, politics, theory, cats
Santa Cruz, CA
Joined April 2012
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Zara Zor se bolo – Azadi!
Initially a chant for Kashmiri liberation in the early 1990s, it was also (more recently) used across India in protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
(Linked liberation struggles making colonizers feel "unwelcome." Good 👋)
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@LEBassett
This reminds me of once when I was asked where the green curry paste was at the Carrefour in Tours ("pâte de curry vert") and the woman looked at me point blank and told me such a thing "does not exist" (n'existe pas). I was trying to grocery shop, not make an ontological claim.
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In this piece for the
@lareviewofbooks
I ask: Why has the role of the Algerian Revolution been overlooked by many scholars of "Fanon studies" in the US? What are the political stakes in siphoning off works on anti-Black racism from questions of empire?
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Since a number of folks were interested in how the "Mediterranean" 🌊 was an imagined geography rooted in colonialism (see ch. 2 of my book with
@DukePress
for the longer version), I've decided to do a 🧵on some key moments of this history with bibliographic references.
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"Markets of Civilization," is officially out with
@DukeUniversity
Press! It studies economic development in colonial and post-colonial Algeria 🇩🇿 through the lens of racial capitalism. A 🧵on the book w/a discount code and info on upcoming book talks ⬇️. (1/10)
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I'm thrilled to announce that my book, "Markets of Civilization: Racial Capitalism and Islam in Algeria," is officially in production with
@DukePress
! Below is the image (a stamp by the Algerian artist Bachir Yellès) that I'm hoping to adapt for the cover. 🇩🇿❤️🔖💃
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The nice folks at
@DukePress
have published my introduction on their website for free🤩! It studies the specific place of Islam in the racial formation of French Algeria, showing how late colonial development shaped the trajectory of neoliberalism. 🇩🇿🖊️📕
Check out
@MuriamDavis
's new book "Markets of Civilization", which shows how Islam became a racial category that shaped postcolonial Algeria. Read the free intro on our website now!
#AfricanStudies
#PostcolonialStudies
#MiddleEastStudies
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Hundreds of word documents/drafts are finally starting to look like a real book! Excited to see my work on the
@DukePress
website. Could not have asked for a cooler cover or more generous blurbs.
🤩🇩🇿🖊️💃
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@jasoncoxnc
@LEBassett
True story indeed. I just love the conviction with which the first "Ce n'est pas possible !" is said. It's like a catastrophe is always lurking when some form flexibility might be expressed.
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You know what's really NOT a good look? Firing 80+ grad workers and effectively stripping them of their health insurance in the midst of a major global health pandemic.
@colasolidarity
@payusmoreucsc
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An Iraqi stamp in solidarity with the 1962 burning of the library of the University of Algiers (by the OAS).
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I don't know of a concerted boycott against
@Columbia
after their repression of SJP and JVP, and now their suspension of students (which includes loss of housing). Nevertheless, I canceled my talk scheduled for later this month. Sending full solidarity. 🇵🇸
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Fun fact: The Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz visited Algeria for five days in 1963 and noted in an interview that he had passed by Ali la Pointe Street and that this story would make for an excellent film. This was 3 years before the film the Battle of Algiers was filmed! 🇩🇿 🇵🇰
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Today's image from the archive: Fidel Castro and Boumediene walking through the streets of Algiers on 14 May 1972.
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Israel has killed 439 Palestinians academics. 11 of 14 universities of Gaza have been destroyed. While the rest of the world denounces "scholasticide," the
@AHAhistorians
institutionalizes a partnership with Tel Aviv University through the Dan David prize.
#AcademicBoycottNow
I was flipping through the latest issue of
@AHAhistorians
Perspectives hoping to find a single word about Gaza. Instead, I see that the AHA Council has accepted the Dan David Foundation as an AHA affiliate, announced now in the the midst of a genocide of Palestinians and ongoing
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A few thoughts on Tunisia's importation of the French far-right's notion of the "Great Replacement" since I was talking about how certain Western ideas of race have been appropriated by pseudo-scientists and/or politicians in the MENA region in class today.
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Soon I’ll be featuring a poll on here: clips from the western press after 1 November 1954 on Algeria 🇩🇿 and current takes on Palestine 🇵🇸(with country names erased). Let’s see how many people can guess which country they are talking about.
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light of Kais Saied's recent racist and xenophobic remarks, I'd like to share this recent piece, which is an overview of some of the historiography regarding race and decolonization in the Maghreb. I'm happy to share the PDF if you don't have access (link below).
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Excited that my research on how ideas about Islam shaped economic orthodoxies in colonial and post-colonial Algeria is under contract with
@DukePress
. In it, I argue for more capacious ways of thinking about racial capitalism. The real question is:
#Will2022Happen
?
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Anglophones, if you don't know anything about Algeria, if you've never been there (watching the battle of Algiers once does not count), PLEASE STOP TALKING OR WRITING NOW. It's the last week of the quarter and I'm just too tired for all this BS.
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Extremely excited to be organizing this workshop on intellectual histories of decolonization across the Maghreb and Mashreq with Max Weiss and Robert Parks. It will be taking place in Tunis, from 9-10 December. Here's the CFP!
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I'm very excited to be discussing my forthcoming book, "Markets of Civilization: Islam and Racial Capitalism in Algeria" (
@DukePress
) with Tony Alessandrini this Friday!
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Some thoughts on how the discourse on "misère sociale" in 🇫🇷 hides the structural racism that is a root cause of the recent uprisings.
#JusticePourNael
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Here's my article for
@meriponline
that analyzes the historical entanglements among French, Israeli, and American settler colonial projects. In it, I argue that highlighting (or ignoring) these relationships has clear political stakes in the present.
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@decolonialcommi
I wrote this piece (now a book project) precisely out of this frustration! Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
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In solidarity with the UC-wide walkout on Thursday I will not be giving this talk at UCSD. Looking forward to visiting when all of our grad students have the COLA they deserve and UCSC rehires the apx 80 students who were fired.
@ColaUcsd
@payusmoreucsc
#spreadthestrike
Will be giving a talk at UCSD this week and happy to chat about the
#UCSCstrike
as well as my research.
@ColaUcsd
#Faculty4Cola
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It's a challenge to find online primary sources for undergraduate history students working on the MENA region, (particularly in English). Here is a list of digitized 📄 materials that I've found useful. 👇🧵Which ones am I missing?
#TwitterHistorians
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So
@BootsRiley
and
@profdavidharvey
signed the same document and it's a call to boycott the UCs until our 80 fired graduate workers are reinstated and given health care.
#Boycott4COLA
@payusmoreucsc
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Not sure if I have any Cornell friends on here, but I'm really looking forward to participating in this great event on Racial Capitalism later this month.
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First day of teaching my favorite class, Post-Colonial North Africa. We start by thinking about the difficulty of deconstructing both colonial 🇩🇿and nationalist 🇩🇿historiographies, using 'Abd al-Qadir as an example (and a song 🎶). A 🧵
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We’re just professors, standing in front of UC admin…. asking them to bargain in good faith!
#WeTeachUC
#FairUCNow
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How cool are these? Two outlines of Algerian politics found in Bruno Étienne's papers.
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Having a lot of fun researching this piece on Lebanese, Iraqi and Syrian visions of the Algerian Revolution over spring break.
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Lots of people reveling in hearing Kassaman played in France after Khelif's amazing 🥇 victory. Here are some fun historical facts about Algeria's 🇩🇿 national anthem 🎶. A 🧵:
Yes i was there! Hearing the Algerian national anthem in FRANCE was a bonus!
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Fun fact: In 1957, Syrian students took to the streets in support of Djamila Bouhired the 🇩🇿 Moudjahida. They destroyed a statue of Jean d'Arc (the namesake of their school) and replaced it with a plaque that said "Djamila Bouhired School." This is what inspired Nizar Qabbani...
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It turns out that a number of students in my class on the modern Mediterranean (which focuses heavily on the MENA region) assumed that the course would be focused exclusively on Greece 😂😭
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I know this has fallen out of view as the world seems to be crumbling, but UCSC's grads - fired from the strike - need our help! 41 people will seek reinstatement through expedited arbitration starting 4 August. A thread on how you can help!
@SpreadtheStrike
@colasolidarity
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After a frustrating day in the land of faculty organizing, I will just reiterate: regardless of how many books they've written, or how brilliant they are, academics provide labor. As such, they need be in solidarity with other workers on campus. Including those who don't teach.
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On 8 November 1962, 🇵🇰diplomat Muhammad Zafrullah Khan presented a resolution asking that 🇩🇿 be admitted to the UN. This is a photo of the Algerian delegation that afternoon (Ahmed Ben Bella, Mohammed Khemistei, Tewfik El Madawi, Mohammed M. Yazid, Ahmed Kaidi, and T. Mechiche)
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Just a little reminder that the "right to resist" is not only a political and moral imperative; it is also international law.
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"Frantz Fanon once remarked that radio had the power to create national communities and that listening is not only a form of consumption, but rather an act of constitution." My piece on Radio Corona International for
@jadaliyya
.
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Those remarks were truly unhinged but did we not know that Islamophobia is one of the pillars of our foreign policy?
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"les fumigenes sont dans la culture algérienne" - BFMTV. French mainstream television is just dying for a new way to be racist. I wont even get into the BBC journalist who contacted me for an interview to discuss the "raucous" Algerians (I declined). TAHYA AL-JAZAYIR HATERS.
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Le Corbusier's sketch of Algiers. While much has been written on his involvement with Fascist circles, (+ the masculinist fantasies of the "Modulor"), his colonial fantasies of Algiers have received much less attention ..summer class is heading to la Cité Radieuse tomorrow!
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I'm back at work on this Fanon article ✏️🏗️💻and remembered this amazing photo of him with a young 🇩🇿Bouteflika and🇦🇴 Roberto Holden that I had to share.... (from Leo Zeilig's, "Voices of Liberation").
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UCSC students have been creative, brave, and taken care of each other. The administration has responded with threats and riot police, arresting, suspending, and injuring students. A thread on how you can be in solidarity:
UC president Janet Napolitano sent a letter tonight threatening to fire hundreds of UC Santa Cruz grad students, on wildcat strike all week to demand higher wages. Santa Cruz is least affordable small city in the U.S.
On assignment with
@MotherJones
@payusmoreucsc
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I'll be speaking about Algerian readings of Fanon after 1962 tomorrow at this wonderful conference organized by
@donalhassett1
.
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Basically me spending Christmas in France consists of me leaving the table every time "femme" and "Islam" are uttered in the same sentence.
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If you'd like to know the gist of my book without reading 200+ pages, here is a short interview I did with
@jadaliyya
.
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13/ Of course the Mediterranean has meant lots of different things to people over history. The colonial appropriation is just one of many imagined geographies. But I do think the fact that the region tends to be associated with Greece rather than, say, Lebanon is telling.
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If you are as depressed as I am about politics in the US and France, I offer this poster from this May 1967 Conference in Algeria 🇩🇿, The Seminar of Arab Socialists. A short 🧵:
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Hasan Minhaj covering graduate student strikes and asking the obvious question: why are the cops wearing riot gear?
Thanks for a shout out
@hasanminhaj
. We promise not to attack you with specific examples from the text. Check out this
#colastrike
coverage in
@patriotact
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A wild and scary night here at UCSC; around 80 arrests in total and police units deployed from all across the Bay Area.
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Since attempts to crack down on so-called « islamogauchisme” is unfortunately back in the headlines in France, with not much good critical analysis in English, I’m sharing this piece of mine from my pre-twitter days:
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I am thrilled that our senate resolution in solidarity with Palestine 🇵🇸 and safeguarding our right to critique Israeli war crimes was resoundingly approved at
@UCSC
. This measure is, in many ways, insufficient in the face of genocide. But it is a start.
#AcademicBoycottNow
#BDS
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9/ As I argue in this
@meriponline
article, even in California, the introduction of a "Mediterranean" aesthetic served to obscure colonial violence; a similar phenomenon can be seen in Israel (see Susan Slyomovics).
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Reading another (albeit brilliantly researched) book about the colonial roots of X that proceeds to only talk about European thinkers and has zero non European languages or archives. The colonial turn has gone astray y’all.
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Inspired in large part by
@ArthurAsseraf
's walking tours, I put together this annotated map of postcolonial Marseille for a class that I am teaching. It starts with colonial medicine and ends with O'Tacos - enjoy :)
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Friends, what are some of the texts (historical/anthropological/theoretical) that you think span South Asia and the MENA region? This can either be actual in terms of actual transnational movement (of people or ideas) or a reflection on concerns that span both regions? Thanks!
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Je suis ravie d'avoir contribué un article à ce numéro spéciale de la revue Tumultes (sur "La planification économique comme 'savoir raciale' pendant la guerre d'Algérie.) Un grand merci à Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun et Aissa Kadri pour l'invitation.
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Back cover of a special edition of Révolution Africaine dedicated to Frantz Fanon in 1987, part of my research on the reception of Fanon's thought in post-colonial Algeria.
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For those teaching the Middle East and North Africa, this is a really useful volume that focuses on pedagogy and deconstructing pre-conceived notions about the region. Happy to have contributed a chapter on decolonization and be in such great company!
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8) When actors adopt these tools (good or bad), it's not purely "derivative" or parroting of "the West." Viewing North Africans only through a decolonial framework can obscure how intellectuals and politicians have always made sense of their world with categories from elsewhere.
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#Twitterhistorians
- tomorrow I am teaching my students about footnotes - their form and function. Do you have a favorite footnote? Bonus points for one that is funny, catty, or revealing of something essential that you would have missed otherwise.
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Western commentators all scrambling for categories to make sense of Algeria's revolutionary "experience" - just like they did in 1962. Luckily, no one understands the unity of theory and praxis - or the bankruptcy of Western liberals - better than Algerians.
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An essay by Maryse Condé on reading Fanon published in 2020. It seems to be an (edited) version of an earlier essay "How to Become a True Fanonian" that I saw in Fanon's archives. A few things key things have been left out of the published version 🧵⬇️
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2) Scientific racism has long been adapted by nationalists in the region for their own political ends (esp after WWI). The fact of being from the global south does not make one an "ideologically pure" subject who only uses "indigenous" tools.
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The stories I am hearing of academics in France being censured, or actively punished, by institutions and/or their own colleagues for expressing support for Palestine is truly terrifying. When the critics become the enforcers.
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A talk on the trope of Mediterranean agriculture and settler colonialism that I was supposed to give last year at UCSD. It pushed back for the strike and then for covid...will miss seeing friends at UCSD, but here's the flyer (zoom link and full description in comments).
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If you are UC faculty and think that the biggest labor action in the history of higher education doesn't even merit coming to the picket (let alone cancelling classes), I'd REALLY love to hear your thinking on this.
#FairUCNow
#FacultySolidarity
#ShutItDown
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On the anniversary of the massacres of 17 October, 1961, Karim Benzema - the son of Algerian parents living in Lyon - receives the Ballon d'Or.
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I still can't quite get up the courage to hear the sound of my own voice recorded, but here I am on NPR's Morning Edition talking about Algeria.
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Can someone please explain to me what "Arabesque cooking" is? Anything with Sumac? A way to avoid "Arab" or "Middle Eastern"? A diet that comes with a yoga routine done to the soundtrack of Aladdin?
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So after sending in my final book revisions, I needed to turn the page (literally), think about a new project, brainstorm fresh ideas. Something radical. A fresh start. So I bought a Moleskine notebook... IN A DIFFERENT COLOR.
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Thomas Serres and I put together this "essential reading" list on the Algerian
#hirak
for
@jadaliyya
, covering articles and books in English, French, and Arabic. #الحراك_مستمر
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2/ The notion of "recovering" the classical (Latin) Mediterranean had long been a pretext for colonization (along with stopping the Barbary corsairs), evident in Napoleon's invasion of Egypt or the occupation of Algeria or Mussolini in Libya.(see Juan Cole/Diana Davis).
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In the same interview he speaks of his dream of creating a journal that brings together Afro-Asian writers in English and French. This was five years before the creation of the trilingual magazine Lotus in 1968.
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@naya_artemis
I love how she's literally trying to sneak in the "barak allahwfik" asap to get off the phone and GO CELEBRATE.
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Fun fact from the archives: when Fanon was worked at the psychiatric hospital in Blida 🇩🇿 during the Revolution, he asked the musician Abderrahmane Aziz to form a choir with the patients as part of their therapy. 🎶
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The cover of the Lebanese 🇱🇧 journal "Al-Adab" dedicated to the Writer's Conference held in Algeria from April 25-28, 1965.
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This is absolutely wild. Shame on
@Columbia
. ..to think this place still has an "Edward Said" chair in Arab Studies. And under the Presidency of an Egyptian-American no less.
Columbia when it gave tenure to Edward Said embraced his postcolonial critique of texts. Columbia today, when students are applying the postcolonial critique to real world live events? Not so much.
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1/ One major theorist of the Mediterranean, Fernand Braudel taught secondary school in Algiers between 1923 and 1932. Claude Liauzu argues that Braudel viewed Islam as an "intruder" and notes the orientalist tendencies in his writing (also see Omar Carlier).
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I have a chapter on the political economy of the (colonial) Maghreb in this very cool volume.
Exciting news! Copies of A Critical Political Economy of the MENA, edited by
@shereneseikaly
,
@4Bassam
, and Joel Beinin, are now shipping. With chapters from an amazing lineup including
@MuriamDavis
,
@maxajl
,
@ziadaburish
,
@ahmadshokr
, and yours truly.
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Fantastic essay by
@LalehKhalili
on consulting firms which speak the language of "efficiency" but are "in fact focused on enabling capitalists to enrich themselves further without the inconvenient interference of workers, taxpayers or regulation."
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Not to brag, but I've officially mastered the art of giving the impression that I'm intensely listening to discussions on Zoom while actually playing with my cat.
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Kicking off the first leg of my European book tour for Markets of Civilization (
@DukePress
) 🥳! Londoners: I'll be at SOAS next Thursday (the 27th). Parisiens: je serai à Sciences Po le 28 Octobre. Et les camarades à Marseille, rendez-vous le 2 novembre à l'IMéRA.
Links & info⬇️
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Thinking about how someone called my work "anti-Global North" 😂 this year. I have one foot in 🇫🇷 history (bc 🇩🇿), but w/the (almost) total moral bankruptcy of colleagues/institutions in Europe after 7 October 🇵🇸 , South-South histories/languages seem so much more urgent.
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Yeah, no problem with race in Enlightenment thought whatsoever. Just objective categories like “civilization/savagery/progress” invokes by the likes of Kant, Hume, and Cuvier. 😂🤣😂
Rather than retreat into zero-sum identity politics, Americans yearning for progress on race should look to Enlightenment liberalism
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Example 1: "One month ago, it was unthinkable to criticize Bouteflika." Nope. Definitely not true. As in completely false.
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"The police officer who arrested me used pain compliance techniques on me... He bruised my back and ribs to the point that I had to take pain medication to be able to sleep." THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
#HealthCareNotHandcuffs
#CopsOffCampus
#RehireMyTA
@payusmoreucsc
Rather than negotiating w grads, UC has relied on police violence to silence them. Today we share the story of Brenna Mockler, Astrophysics PhD student & worker, who was among those violently arrested while peacefully protesting. Please share her story. She is
#cola4all
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8/ Pharaonism (in Egypt) and Phoenicianism (in Lebanon) were first articulated in the late nineteenth century by Europeans to legitimize colonial incursions (Kaufman, "Reviving Phoenicia," Colla, "Conflicted Antiquities", also see El Shakry on Egypt or David Stenner on Morocco.
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A discussion on here reminded me of efforts to turn Algeria into a "French Algeria" in the interwar period. My books shows how this notion influenced both settler ideology and concrete economic reforms. I couldn't get the rights to use this map, but it is a wonderful image!
@NickJBrumfield
@looseluddite
@CjvHenderson
@sarahghabrial
@jamesrmcd
@ArthurAsseraf
I came across this amazing great map comparing California to Algeria:
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As promised! The Hirak glossary compiles by myself,
@nostAlgerian_
and Thomas Serres. Thanks to all of you who have contributed formally or informally, this really was a collaborative effort!
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