Thirteen expert historians and
philosophers address basic questions on
historical time and on... more Thirteen expert historians and
philosophers address basic questions on
historical time and on the distinctions
between past, present and future. Their
contributions are organised around
four themes: the relation between time
and modernity; the issue of ruptures in
time and the influence of catastrophic
events such as revolutions and wars on
temporal distinctions; the philosophical
analysis of historical time and temporal
distinctions; and the construction of
time outside Europe through processes
of colonialism, imperialism, and
globalisation.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Berber Bevernage and Chris Lorenz: Breaking up Time –
Negotiating the Borders between Present, Past and Future
1. Time and Modernity: Critical Approaches to Koselleck’s Legacy
Aleida Assmann: Transformations of the Modern Time Regime
Peter Fritzsche: The Ruins of Modernity
Peter Osborne: Global Modernity and the Contemporary: Two Categories of the Philosophy of Historical Time
2. Ruptures in Time: Revolutions and Wars
Sanja Perovic: Year 1 and Year 61 of the French Revolution: The Revolutionary Calendar and Auguste Comte
Claudia Verhoeven: Wormholes in Russian History: Events ‘Outside of Time’
François Hartog: The Modern Régime of Historicity in the Face of
Two World Wars
Lucian Hölscher: Mysteries of Historical Order: Ruptures, Simultaneity and the Relationship of the Past, the Present and the Future
3. Thinking about Time: Analytical Approaches
Jonathan Gorman: The Limits of Historiographical Choice in Temporal Distinctions
Constantin Fasolt: Breaking up Time – Escaping from Time: Self-Assertion and Knowledge of the Past
4. Time outside Europe: Imperialism, Colonialism and Globalisation
Lynn Hunt: Globalisation and Time
Stefan Tanaka: Unification of Time and the Fragmentation of Pasts in Meiji Japan
Axel Schneider: Temporal Hierarchies and Moral Leadership:
China’s Engagement with Modern Views of History
William Gallois: The War for Time in Early Colonial Algeria"
The personnel files of Mohammed ben Mustapha, who may have been the third or fourth Algerian-trai... more The personnel files of Mohammed ben Mustapha, who may have been the third or fourth Algerian-trained doctor to work in the colonial medical service, reveal only one significant facet of his career and one key feature of his life, which led very directly to his death, about which we know only a little more.
This book asks how ethics can help us to understand the encounter between French colonists and Al... more This book asks how ethics can help us to understand the encounter between French colonists and Algerians in the Nineteenth century. It focuses on questions of medicine since the claimed goodness of the French 'civilising mission' depended on the idea that the health of the Algerian people would be improved under imperial rule. In looking at the manner in which such moral claims were constructed and the way in which they operated in practice, Gallois offers one of the first comparative histories of medicine and ethics. The book argues that while the French failure to 'medicalise' Algerian society is well understood, histories of health also need to consider ways in which policies of massacre and extermination were conceived as being morally good, and how the diminution of the Algerian population was countenanced at moments of famine and epidemic disease. It also offers the first accounts of Algerian doctors working in colonial medicine, looking at the manner in which ...
A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony, 2013
In order to truly understand the ways in which French razzias functioned, the manner in which the... more In order to truly understand the ways in which French razzias functioned, the manner in which they were directed and their effects upon Indigenes, it is necessary to look at specific, and quite typical, campaigning moments in greater detail. We are then able to gain a richer sense of the ways in which razzias were the product of dialogues and decision-making between the office of the Governor General, commanders in the field and the Ministry of War in Paris (with the possibility of assigning some sense of accountability among these parties who, individually, were wont to absolve themselves of responsibility for the most horrific features of such raids). Closer investigation of the extensive sets of documentation on such attacks offers not only a greater sense of the ways in which razzias functioned but also the opportunity to see the manner in which more programmatic features of French campaigning were stitched across military interventions which were invariably described as reactions to specific circumstances and as being quite unprogrammatic in their character.
ABSTRACT While the French colony of Algeria was known to have been a violent place, historians ha... more ABSTRACT While the French colony of Algeria was known to have been a violent place, historians have rarely compared the specificities and contours of its violent culture with those of other nineteenth-century settler colonies such as Australia and America. This review article asks why this has been the case and whether new definitions of genocide that have emerged from the study of other colonies might not be applied to Algeria. It contends that the systematic qualities of organised French violence—chiefly in the form of massacres known as ‘razzias’—have been underestimated and that the Algerian case merits study by functionalist and intentionalist scholars of genocide. While work still needs to be undertaken connecting French ‘exterminationist’ literatures to the practice of mass killing in the colony, a series of recent histories of Algeria have suggested that traditional literatures underestimated the scope and effects of French violence upon the indigenous peoples of Algeria.
I write, Monsieur Governor, as a man who holds only the position of health officer, but I hope yo... more I write, Monsieur Governor, as a man who holds only the position of health officer, but I hope you will realise the great effort it has taken me to reach even that rank. Out of a population of three million Algerian Arabs there are just four colonial doctors, two health officers and two other medical officials. Those appointed as doctors have qualifications no different to my own — simply secondary education without a bachelor’s degree — but they had the great fortune to work under Governor Chanzy, who felt moved to alter their ranks from health officers to doctors. In those days, the authorities never missed the opportunity to encourage young Algerians who wished to study and to assimilate themselves with their French masters; to enter into the new life which France offered them. I would like to believe that such policies continue to this day and that your office will support the development of more Algerian doctors so as to encourage our country down the road of civilisation and progress … Today, however, with my health officer’s diploma I find myself without resources or a route of advancement. I feel like a sea-going traveller who, when his ship reaches the middle of the ocean, is told that he must disembark for he will be taken no further. Because of this, Monsieur Governor, I feel that I would have preferred to have not travelled on that journey and instead stayed on my own shore, where I would have been content with my savage existence and not troubled by these brick walls and obstructions which now face me.1
A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony, 2013
This chapter describes a series of key features of the world of the armee d’Afrique in the 1830s ... more This chapter describes a series of key features of the world of the armee d’Afrique in the 1830s and ’40s. It begins by tracking the growing number of soldiers sent to Algeria across the period, before moving on to look at statistical records that measure their suffering in and out of combat. Having shown that very few of the army died in battle, it then goes on to suggest that the central figure in French accounts of the resistance they faced — Abd el-Kader — was as much a fiction as he was a true threat to France, created in a coalescence of the Emir’s desire for self-aggrandisement and the French need for a recognisable enemy. A consideration then follows of the variety of other threats — from England, Morocco, Tunisia, the Ottomans and others — which helped to shape French policy in the Maghreb, along with an analysis of both the armee’s oft-noticed dreams of military colonialism and its less-mentioned aspiration to control North Africa through economic means, most notably through projects of infrastructure and the establishment of an autarkic domination of supply and demand.
A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony, 2013
In the early days of the conquest, French soldiers offered a stark picture of the barbarism of co... more In the early days of the conquest, French soldiers offered a stark picture of the barbarism of conflict between tribes in Algeria. In June 1832, for instance, the Ouled Sidi e-Arabi had seized fourteen rival chiefs, nine of whom were from the Medjeher, and ‘cut them into pieces’.1 Later that year, the Aga of the Bey of Constantine had mounted a surprise attack on rival tribes, in which he had cut off the heads of 22 men as well as ‘committing all sorts of horrors on their women and girls’.2 Months later that very same Aga was ‘decapitated’, along with fourteen other courtiers, by Ahmed Bey. The tribes around Bone greatly feared that they would be the next of Bey’s targets while, d’Uzer, the French commander, reported that his army was unable to offer them protection due to their insufficient numbers.3
On 11 June 1868, an unnamed French colon from the town of Ruisseau wrote to the Governor General ... more On 11 June 1868, an unnamed French colon from the town of Ruisseau wrote to the Governor General begging for greater levels of support for local indigenes. The sentiment which underlay his letter, he asserted, was ‘a sympathy for all men’: ‘if it would be possible to better their position, this would be a just act and an expression of well-judged charity’.1
If a picture was not seen to be art when it was made, can we imagine that its producer may have d... more If a picture was not seen to be art when it was made, can we imagine that its producer may have designed the work to be read elsewhere in time or space? Or, perhaps, that the eyes that have been trained upon the work have rarely been those that were able to see and describe its value? This piece (also available on Instagram @cendrillondefes) tries to dramatize the gains that come to history through a process of learning to read a text whose significance was not seen in the moment in which it was made. It aims at a discrete form of upending, in reevaluating the work of an important artist and the culture from which they came, while aspiring to be a more of a beginning than an ending in its more general goals. These humbler aspirations depend upon seeing its subject as a teacher, rather than simply as an object of study.
Thirteen expert historians and
philosophers address basic questions on
historical time and on... more Thirteen expert historians and
philosophers address basic questions on
historical time and on the distinctions
between past, present and future. Their
contributions are organised around
four themes: the relation between time
and modernity; the issue of ruptures in
time and the influence of catastrophic
events such as revolutions and wars on
temporal distinctions; the philosophical
analysis of historical time and temporal
distinctions; and the construction of
time outside Europe through processes
of colonialism, imperialism, and
globalisation.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Berber Bevernage and Chris Lorenz: Breaking up Time –
Negotiating the Borders between Present, Past and Future
1. Time and Modernity: Critical Approaches to Koselleck’s Legacy
Aleida Assmann: Transformations of the Modern Time Regime
Peter Fritzsche: The Ruins of Modernity
Peter Osborne: Global Modernity and the Contemporary: Two Categories of the Philosophy of Historical Time
2. Ruptures in Time: Revolutions and Wars
Sanja Perovic: Year 1 and Year 61 of the French Revolution: The Revolutionary Calendar and Auguste Comte
Claudia Verhoeven: Wormholes in Russian History: Events ‘Outside of Time’
François Hartog: The Modern Régime of Historicity in the Face of
Two World Wars
Lucian Hölscher: Mysteries of Historical Order: Ruptures, Simultaneity and the Relationship of the Past, the Present and the Future
3. Thinking about Time: Analytical Approaches
Jonathan Gorman: The Limits of Historiographical Choice in Temporal Distinctions
Constantin Fasolt: Breaking up Time – Escaping from Time: Self-Assertion and Knowledge of the Past
4. Time outside Europe: Imperialism, Colonialism and Globalisation
Lynn Hunt: Globalisation and Time
Stefan Tanaka: Unification of Time and the Fragmentation of Pasts in Meiji Japan
Axel Schneider: Temporal Hierarchies and Moral Leadership:
China’s Engagement with Modern Views of History
William Gallois: The War for Time in Early Colonial Algeria"
The personnel files of Mohammed ben Mustapha, who may have been the third or fourth Algerian-trai... more The personnel files of Mohammed ben Mustapha, who may have been the third or fourth Algerian-trained doctor to work in the colonial medical service, reveal only one significant facet of his career and one key feature of his life, which led very directly to his death, about which we know only a little more.
This book asks how ethics can help us to understand the encounter between French colonists and Al... more This book asks how ethics can help us to understand the encounter between French colonists and Algerians in the Nineteenth century. It focuses on questions of medicine since the claimed goodness of the French 'civilising mission' depended on the idea that the health of the Algerian people would be improved under imperial rule. In looking at the manner in which such moral claims were constructed and the way in which they operated in practice, Gallois offers one of the first comparative histories of medicine and ethics. The book argues that while the French failure to 'medicalise' Algerian society is well understood, histories of health also need to consider ways in which policies of massacre and extermination were conceived as being morally good, and how the diminution of the Algerian population was countenanced at moments of famine and epidemic disease. It also offers the first accounts of Algerian doctors working in colonial medicine, looking at the manner in which ...
A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony, 2013
In order to truly understand the ways in which French razzias functioned, the manner in which the... more In order to truly understand the ways in which French razzias functioned, the manner in which they were directed and their effects upon Indigenes, it is necessary to look at specific, and quite typical, campaigning moments in greater detail. We are then able to gain a richer sense of the ways in which razzias were the product of dialogues and decision-making between the office of the Governor General, commanders in the field and the Ministry of War in Paris (with the possibility of assigning some sense of accountability among these parties who, individually, were wont to absolve themselves of responsibility for the most horrific features of such raids). Closer investigation of the extensive sets of documentation on such attacks offers not only a greater sense of the ways in which razzias functioned but also the opportunity to see the manner in which more programmatic features of French campaigning were stitched across military interventions which were invariably described as reactions to specific circumstances and as being quite unprogrammatic in their character.
ABSTRACT While the French colony of Algeria was known to have been a violent place, historians ha... more ABSTRACT While the French colony of Algeria was known to have been a violent place, historians have rarely compared the specificities and contours of its violent culture with those of other nineteenth-century settler colonies such as Australia and America. This review article asks why this has been the case and whether new definitions of genocide that have emerged from the study of other colonies might not be applied to Algeria. It contends that the systematic qualities of organised French violence—chiefly in the form of massacres known as ‘razzias’—have been underestimated and that the Algerian case merits study by functionalist and intentionalist scholars of genocide. While work still needs to be undertaken connecting French ‘exterminationist’ literatures to the practice of mass killing in the colony, a series of recent histories of Algeria have suggested that traditional literatures underestimated the scope and effects of French violence upon the indigenous peoples of Algeria.
I write, Monsieur Governor, as a man who holds only the position of health officer, but I hope yo... more I write, Monsieur Governor, as a man who holds only the position of health officer, but I hope you will realise the great effort it has taken me to reach even that rank. Out of a population of three million Algerian Arabs there are just four colonial doctors, two health officers and two other medical officials. Those appointed as doctors have qualifications no different to my own — simply secondary education without a bachelor’s degree — but they had the great fortune to work under Governor Chanzy, who felt moved to alter their ranks from health officers to doctors. In those days, the authorities never missed the opportunity to encourage young Algerians who wished to study and to assimilate themselves with their French masters; to enter into the new life which France offered them. I would like to believe that such policies continue to this day and that your office will support the development of more Algerian doctors so as to encourage our country down the road of civilisation and progress … Today, however, with my health officer’s diploma I find myself without resources or a route of advancement. I feel like a sea-going traveller who, when his ship reaches the middle of the ocean, is told that he must disembark for he will be taken no further. Because of this, Monsieur Governor, I feel that I would have preferred to have not travelled on that journey and instead stayed on my own shore, where I would have been content with my savage existence and not troubled by these brick walls and obstructions which now face me.1
A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony, 2013
This chapter describes a series of key features of the world of the armee d’Afrique in the 1830s ... more This chapter describes a series of key features of the world of the armee d’Afrique in the 1830s and ’40s. It begins by tracking the growing number of soldiers sent to Algeria across the period, before moving on to look at statistical records that measure their suffering in and out of combat. Having shown that very few of the army died in battle, it then goes on to suggest that the central figure in French accounts of the resistance they faced — Abd el-Kader — was as much a fiction as he was a true threat to France, created in a coalescence of the Emir’s desire for self-aggrandisement and the French need for a recognisable enemy. A consideration then follows of the variety of other threats — from England, Morocco, Tunisia, the Ottomans and others — which helped to shape French policy in the Maghreb, along with an analysis of both the armee’s oft-noticed dreams of military colonialism and its less-mentioned aspiration to control North Africa through economic means, most notably through projects of infrastructure and the establishment of an autarkic domination of supply and demand.
A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony, 2013
In the early days of the conquest, French soldiers offered a stark picture of the barbarism of co... more In the early days of the conquest, French soldiers offered a stark picture of the barbarism of conflict between tribes in Algeria. In June 1832, for instance, the Ouled Sidi e-Arabi had seized fourteen rival chiefs, nine of whom were from the Medjeher, and ‘cut them into pieces’.1 Later that year, the Aga of the Bey of Constantine had mounted a surprise attack on rival tribes, in which he had cut off the heads of 22 men as well as ‘committing all sorts of horrors on their women and girls’.2 Months later that very same Aga was ‘decapitated’, along with fourteen other courtiers, by Ahmed Bey. The tribes around Bone greatly feared that they would be the next of Bey’s targets while, d’Uzer, the French commander, reported that his army was unable to offer them protection due to their insufficient numbers.3
On 11 June 1868, an unnamed French colon from the town of Ruisseau wrote to the Governor General ... more On 11 June 1868, an unnamed French colon from the town of Ruisseau wrote to the Governor General begging for greater levels of support for local indigenes. The sentiment which underlay his letter, he asserted, was ‘a sympathy for all men’: ‘if it would be possible to better their position, this would be a just act and an expression of well-judged charity’.1
If a picture was not seen to be art when it was made, can we imagine that its producer may have d... more If a picture was not seen to be art when it was made, can we imagine that its producer may have designed the work to be read elsewhere in time or space? Or, perhaps, that the eyes that have been trained upon the work have rarely been those that were able to see and describe its value? This piece (also available on Instagram @cendrillondefes) tries to dramatize the gains that come to history through a process of learning to read a text whose significance was not seen in the moment in which it was made. It aims at a discrete form of upending, in reevaluating the work of an important artist and the culture from which they came, while aspiring to be a more of a beginning than an ending in its more general goals. These humbler aspirations depend upon seeing its subject as a teacher, rather than simply as an object of study.
This is a book with a hinterland. While the dates in its title would seem to suggest that it offe... more This is a book with a hinterland. While the dates in its title would seem to suggest that it offers a study of the place of medicine in the encounter between Europeans and Moroccans in the immediate pre- colonial and colonial periods, the book’s surtitle--Medicine and the Saints--hints at some of the ways in which it escapes its central chronology. This escape is certainly apparent in the range of sources which are deployed as lenses through which to think through the Protectorate and its afterlife, ranging from readings of classic works from the medieval Islamic canon through to oral histories of health encounters in twenty-first century Fes.
A symposium to be held at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, 18 May... more A symposium to be held at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, 18 May 2015
As academics, we typically take a theory and use it to understand contingent experiences of the w... more As academics, we typically take a theory and use it to understand contingent experiences of the world. In our commitment to understanding, we deploy different and often competing theories to get closer to what we believe to be the 'truth'. If we search hard enough we can find Aristotle, Kant, Marx, Foucault, Benjamin, Arendt, Habermas, Bourdieu and Deleuze all sitting together a tea shop in Yemen, their insights competing or merging with one another to produce different images of Yemeni reality. We can talk about the revolution in Egypt in terms of alienation and the state, neoliberalism, discourse and subjectivisation, hegemony, affect, communicative action, virtue ethics, deterritorialisation or rhizomes. Theory provides concepts to think with. They challenge our assumptions and make us better disposed to critique. In debunking theory with theory we demote one rendition of reality in favour of another. Yet theory is often deployed in such a way that its object is left conceptually mute. Instead of letting locally articulated concepts structure the theoretical core of an academic work, they are, more often than not, left as objects of a theory brought in from elsewhere. The subjects of our research are left in theoretical poverty. The aim of this workshop is to discuss the prospect of a new theoretical openness within Middle Eastern Studies.
Within the context of conflicts in the Middle East which challenge historical borders, the growth... more Within the context of conflicts in the Middle East which challenge historical borders, the growth of militarised borders in Europe and the US, and the increasing securitisation of migration and the 'refugee crisis', the need to understand spatial articulations of conflict has become increasingly critical. In this time of a securitisation of civil space and the militarisation of borders, this conference seeks to explore changing formations of conflict, contestation and dissent, as well as their implications for contemporary academia. We encourage papers that take up the theme in innovative ways, exploring not only conflict, borders and the contestation of space, but also how differing research approaches can stimulate new academic findings and contest the largely neoliberal dominance of studies in the field. We particularly welcome submissions that highlight the connections between the Middle East and North Africa, and other areas of the globe, and aim to foster dialogue and discussion between scholars from a wide array of backgrounds and disciplines. We especially encourage postgraduates and recent PhD graduates to apply.
Draft Programme of a Conference to be held at the University of Exeter, 2-4 October 2015, sponsor... more Draft Programme of a Conference to be held at the University of Exeter, 2-4 October 2015, sponsored by the European Centre for Palestine Studies and the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, and supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Uploads
philosophers address basic questions on
historical time and on the distinctions
between past, present and future. Their
contributions are organised around
four themes: the relation between time
and modernity; the issue of ruptures in
time and the influence of catastrophic
events such as revolutions and wars on
temporal distinctions; the philosophical
analysis of historical time and temporal
distinctions; and the construction of
time outside Europe through processes
of colonialism, imperialism, and
globalisation.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Berber Bevernage and Chris Lorenz: Breaking up Time –
Negotiating the Borders between Present, Past and Future
1. Time and Modernity: Critical Approaches to Koselleck’s Legacy
Aleida Assmann: Transformations of the Modern Time Regime
Peter Fritzsche: The Ruins of Modernity
Peter Osborne: Global Modernity and the Contemporary: Two Categories of the Philosophy of Historical Time
2. Ruptures in Time: Revolutions and Wars
Sanja Perovic: Year 1 and Year 61 of the French Revolution: The Revolutionary Calendar and Auguste Comte
Claudia Verhoeven: Wormholes in Russian History: Events ‘Outside of Time’
François Hartog: The Modern Régime of Historicity in the Face of
Two World Wars
Lucian Hölscher: Mysteries of Historical Order: Ruptures, Simultaneity and the Relationship of the Past, the Present and the Future
3. Thinking about Time: Analytical Approaches
Jonathan Gorman: The Limits of Historiographical Choice in Temporal Distinctions
Constantin Fasolt: Breaking up Time – Escaping from Time: Self-Assertion and Knowledge of the Past
4. Time outside Europe: Imperialism, Colonialism and Globalisation
Lynn Hunt: Globalisation and Time
Stefan Tanaka: Unification of Time and the Fragmentation of Pasts in Meiji Japan
Axel Schneider: Temporal Hierarchies and Moral Leadership:
China’s Engagement with Modern Views of History
William Gallois: The War for Time in Early Colonial Algeria"
philosophers address basic questions on
historical time and on the distinctions
between past, present and future. Their
contributions are organised around
four themes: the relation between time
and modernity; the issue of ruptures in
time and the influence of catastrophic
events such as revolutions and wars on
temporal distinctions; the philosophical
analysis of historical time and temporal
distinctions; and the construction of
time outside Europe through processes
of colonialism, imperialism, and
globalisation.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Berber Bevernage and Chris Lorenz: Breaking up Time –
Negotiating the Borders between Present, Past and Future
1. Time and Modernity: Critical Approaches to Koselleck’s Legacy
Aleida Assmann: Transformations of the Modern Time Regime
Peter Fritzsche: The Ruins of Modernity
Peter Osborne: Global Modernity and the Contemporary: Two Categories of the Philosophy of Historical Time
2. Ruptures in Time: Revolutions and Wars
Sanja Perovic: Year 1 and Year 61 of the French Revolution: The Revolutionary Calendar and Auguste Comte
Claudia Verhoeven: Wormholes in Russian History: Events ‘Outside of Time’
François Hartog: The Modern Régime of Historicity in the Face of
Two World Wars
Lucian Hölscher: Mysteries of Historical Order: Ruptures, Simultaneity and the Relationship of the Past, the Present and the Future
3. Thinking about Time: Analytical Approaches
Jonathan Gorman: The Limits of Historiographical Choice in Temporal Distinctions
Constantin Fasolt: Breaking up Time – Escaping from Time: Self-Assertion and Knowledge of the Past
4. Time outside Europe: Imperialism, Colonialism and Globalisation
Lynn Hunt: Globalisation and Time
Stefan Tanaka: Unification of Time and the Fragmentation of Pasts in Meiji Japan
Axel Schneider: Temporal Hierarchies and Moral Leadership:
China’s Engagement with Modern Views of History
William Gallois: The War for Time in Early Colonial Algeria"