DSPO 27A19 - The postcolonial question in contemporary France.
The “postcolonial question” in contemporary France. Immigration, islam, and identity between the political scene and social mobilizations.
Since the 1983's March for equality and against racism (“Marche des Beurs”), up until the current debates on islamist separatism, the French public sphere is struggling with a new intellectual debate, which can be described as “the postcolonial question”.
By defining and questioning this phrasing, this lecture will first try to establish a political history of immigration in France, and how it has deeply defined and redefined the definitions of social progress. Through the issues of colonial historiography, but also the evolution in France of generations of immigrants and their political behavior, the rise of islam as both a religious and social phenomenon, have deeply transformed the country : the resurgence of the “Empire” questions the very nature of the “Republic”.
Moreover, using diverse approaches in social science, this class aims at explaining this rising issue of identity politics in France which seems to have deeply impacted the political scene. The appearance of this issue is mostly due to economic crises, recent immigration waves and diverse social and political movements which stirred a topical debate on the notion of identity - but also the parallels established with the American debate on race and gender, and how the French university has used (or refused) these categories.
Analyzing the evolution of immigration and islam in France, and how the administration has tried to address these stakes, this class will discuss political and religious phenomena which currently are one of the main fault lines within French parties - both within the left and the right, on the question of integration or assimilation, on a liberal or strict vision of laïcité.
This teaching will mainly focus on France, in order to understand the consequences of these events as a matter of domestic policy. However, those dynamics will be systematically compared to foreign similar events and replaced in a Euro-Mediterranean context through a comprehensive chronology.
Histoire & mémoire coloniale / History & colonial memory
- Pierre Vermeren, La France en terre d'islam, Belin, 2016
- Mohammed Arkoun, Histoire de l'islam et des musulmans en France du Moyen ge à nos jours, 2006, Paris
- Alec G. Hargreaves, Mark McKinney, Post-colonial Cultures in France, Routledge, 1997
- Aldrich, Robert. Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion, 1996
- Paul A. Silverstein, Postcolonial France : Race, Islam, and the Future of the Republic, Pluto Press, 2018 Immigration postcoloniale / Postcolonial immigration
- Abdelmalek Sayad, La Double Absence. Des illusions de l'émigré aux souffrances de l'immigré. Paris, Seuil, coll. « Liber », 1999, 438 p.
- Antoine Menusier, Le livre des indésirés : Une histoire des arabes en France, Cerf, 2019
- Gérard Noiriel, Le creuset français : une histoire de l'immigration en France, Seuil, 2016
- Gérard Noiriel, The French Melting Pot: Immigration, Citizenship, and National Identity, Minnesota Press, 1996
- Ahmed Boubeker et Abdellali Hajjat, Histoire politique des immigrations (post)coloniales, Éditions Amsterdam, 2008
- Mickael Augustin, La vraie histoire de la Marche des Beurs, Bellier, 2013
- Rabah Aissaoui, Le discours du Mouvement des travailleurs arabes (MTA) dans les années 1970 en France. Mobilisation et mémoire du combat anticolonial, Hommes & Migrations Année 2006 1263 pp. 105-119
- Film de Mahmoud Zemmouri, « Prends 10.000 balles et casse-toi », sorti en 1982
Islam en France / Islam in France
- Anne-Laure Zwilling, "A century of mosques in France: building religious pluralism." International Review of Sociology 25#2 (2015): 333-340p.
- Tarik Yildiz, Qui sont-ils ? Enquête sur les jeunes musulmans de France, Paris, Éditions du Toucan / L'Artilleur, 2016.
- Gilles Kepel, Allah in the West, Stanford University Press, 1995
- Gilles Kepel, Quatre Vingt Treize, Gallimard, 2012
- J. Talpin, J.O'Miel; F. Frégosi : L'islam et la Cité, Engagements musulmans dans les quartiers populaires, Septentrion, 2017
- Vincent Geisser, Omero Marongiu-Perria, Kahina Smaïl : Musulmans de France, la grande épreuve, Atelier, 2017
Mouvements antiracistes et islamophobie / Antiracist movements and islamophobia
- Didier Fassin et Éric Fassin, De la question sociale à la question raciale ? Représenter la société française, 2006, La découverte, Paris
- Manuel Boucher, La gauche et la race, Réflexions sur les marches de la dignité et les antimouvements décoloniaux, L'Harmattan, Paris, 2018
- Gérard Noiriel et Stéphane Beaud, Races & Sciences sociales, Agone, 2021
- J. Robine, Les « indigènes de la République » : nation et question postcoloniale; Territoires des enfants de l'immigration et rivalité de pouvoir, Hérodote, 2006
- Marwan Mohammed, Abdelalli Hajjat, Islamophobie: Comment les élites françaises fabriquent le "problème musulman", La découverte, 2013
La question postcoloniale dans le champ politique français / The postcolonial question in the French political field
- Nedjib Sidi Moussa, Histoire algérienne de la France, PUF, 2022
- Christophe Guilluy, La France périphérique, Flammarion, 2019
- Jérôme Fourquet, L'archipel Français, Seuil, 2019
- Robert S. Leiken, Europe Angry Muslims, OUP, 2012
- Valérie Igounet, Le Front National. de 1972 à nos jours. Le parti, les hommes, les idées, Seuil, 2014
- Romain Huet, Le vertige de l'émeute : De la Zad aux Gilets jaunes, Presses universitaires de France, 2019
- Gérald Bronner, La démocratie des crédules, PUF, 2013
- Pierre Vermeren, La France qui déclasse: Les Gilets jaunes, une jacquerie au XXe siècle, Taillandier, 2019
- Gérard Mauger, L'émeute de novembre 2005. Une révolte protopolitique., Paris, 2006.
- Hugues Lagrange, Emeutes urbaines et protestations, Presses de Sciences Po, 2006
Mouvements islamistes / Islamist movements
- Francesco Cavatorta (dir), Fabio Merone, Salafism After the Arab Awakening: Contending With People's Power, Oxford University Press, 2017
- Shiraz Maher, Salafi-Jihadism, the History of an Idea, Oxford University Press, 2016
- Muhammad Khalid Masoud, Travelers in Faith : Studies of the Tablighi Jama'at, 2000
- Thomas Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia: Violence and Pan-Islamism since 1979, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 304 p.
- Hugo Micheron, Le jihadisme français, Gallimard, 2020
- Brigitte Maréchal, The Muslim Brothers in Europe : Roots and discourse, Brill, 2009
- Samir Amghar, Le salafisme d'aujourd'hui. Mouvements sectaires en Occident, 2011
L'universalisme et la politique des identités / Universalism & identity politics
- Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, 2017
- Antoine Lilti, L'héritage des Lumières, ambivalence de la modernité, Seuil, 2019
- Stéphanie Roza, La gauche contre les lumières, Fayard, 2020
- Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Lies that Bind, Rethinking Identity, Norton, 2018
- John McWhorter, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, 2021
- James Lindsay & Helen Pluckrose, Cynical Theories, Pitchstone Publishing, 2020
Théorie et philosophie postcoloniale / Theory and postcolonial philosophy
- Ernest Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason and Religion, 1992
- Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 1983
- Edward Saïd, Orientalism, 1978
- Gérald Bronner, Le danger sociologique, PUF, 2017
- Jean-Philippe Mathy, The Resistance to French Theory in the United States: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry, French Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 331-347
None
Spring 2024-2025
Book review or article review, chosen among the provided bibliography (4-7 pages) 66%
Exposé - Oral presentation (among the proposed subjects of each class 33%
In-class participation 10%
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 1983