TOPICS IN FRENCH CULTURAL HISTORY

TOPICS IN FRENCH CULTURAL HISTORY: COLONIZATION, IMMIGRATION AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
IN FRANCE
Professor Emmanuelle Saada
Fall 2005
Course number : G46. 1500
Thursday - 9:45am - 12:15 pm
(Class in English)
Office hours: Tuesday 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm
email : [email protected]
This class will explore political, historical and sociological aspects of the formation of the French nation. It will
interrogate the notion of "national identity" through an exploration of how nation building in France has been shaped
by colonization and immigration since the early nineteenth century. In this context, the long and complex relationship
between Algeria and France will receive special attention. The last sessions of the class will concentrate on the legacy
of colonization and the many questions raised by immigration in contemporary French society.
Course Requirements
Class participation: 20%
Class memos: 30%
During the course of the semester, students are responsible for writing 3 brief memos analyzing the week's readings
(NO MORE THAN 3 PAGES). These must be sent to all participants on Monday before 12:00 am. Memos should not
be a summary of the readings but a spur to discussion. They should be organized as (1) an argumentative discussion of
the readings' main analytical and empirical points and (2) a list of questions (3 to 5 questions) about the readings that
you would like to discuss in class.
Research Paper (15-20 pages): 50 %
In order to prepare for the paper, you will have to submit a 2-3 pages research proposal by November 25.
The proposal should state the research topic (formulated as a question rather than as just a theme) and a provisional
bibliography. You will have the occasion to discuss the proposal during office hours.
The research paper is due on Friday, December 12.
Suggested Purchases ( NYU bookstore) :
Robert Aldrich, Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion, MacMillan, 1996.
Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Harvard University Press, 1992.
Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, eds., Tensions of Empire, Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1997.
Gérard Noiriel, The French Melting Pot. Immigration, Citizenship and National Identity, Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press, 1996.
Charles-Rober Ageron, Modern Algeria. A History from 1830 to the Present, London, Hurst and Company, 1991
1-Introduction
September 9
2-A French Model for the Nation?
September 16
Excerpts from Rousseau, Social Contract (1762)
Sieyes, What is the Third Estate? (1789)
Jules Michelet, History of France (1833)
Ernest Renan, What is a Nation? (1882)
(Excerpts will be made available in the Salle de lecture)
Pierre Nora "Nation" in François Furet and Mona Ozouf, eds., Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution,
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1989 [1988], pp. 742-753.
Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Harvard University Press, 1992 (introduction
and chapter 2, pp. 1-17 and 35-49)
Gérard Noiriel, Population, Immigration et Identité Nationale en France, XIX-XX siècle. Hachette Supérieur, 1992.
(Chapitre I: "'Peuple', 'Nation', histoire et enjeu des mots. " pp 5-41).
Suggested readings
David Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France, Inventing Nationalism, 1680-1800, Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 2000.
Gérard Fritz, L'Idée de peuple en France du XVII au XIX siècle, Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 1988
Gérard Noiriel, Etat, Nation et immigration. Vers une histoire du pouvoir, Paris, Belin, 2001.
3- Instituting the Nation
September 23
Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914, Stanford, Stanford University
Press, 1876 (Chapter 1 and 29, pp. 3-22 and 485-496).
Dominique Schnapper, Community of Citizens. On the Modern Idea of Nationality, New Brunswick, Transaction
publishers, 1998 [1994] (Chapters 2 and 4, pp. 35-64 and 95-130)
Gérard Noiriel, "The Identification of the Citizen: the Birth of Republican Civil Status in France" in John Torpey and
Jane Caplan (eds), Documenting Individual Identity. The Development of State Practices in the Modern World,
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001, pp. 28-48.
Peter Sahlins, "The Nation in the Village: State-Building and Communal Struggles in the Catalan Borderland during
the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries", The Journal of Modern History, Volume 60, Issue 2 (June 1988) (pp. 234263).
Suggested readings
Pierre Rosanvallon, L'Etat en France. De 1789 à nos jours. Paris, Le Seuil, 1990 (Partie II, chapitre 2: "Produire la
Nation", pp. 100-110).
Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory, 3 volumes, Columbia University Press, 1996.
Jean-François Chanet, L'Ecole républicaine et les petites patries, Paris, Aubier, 1996.
Anne-Marie Thiesse, La Création des identités nationales, Europe XVIII-XXème siècles, Paris, Seuil, 1999.
4-Colonization and National Identity
September 30
Robert Aldrich, Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion, MacMillan, 1996. (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 8)
Martin Deming Lewis, " 'Assimilation' Theory in French Colonial Policy", Comparative Studies in Society and History,
IV, January 1962, pp 129-153.
Herman Lebovics, True France: The Wars over Cultural Identities, 1900-1945, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1992
(Chapter 3, pp. 98-134).
Suggested readings
AGERON, Charles-Robert, France coloniale ou Parti Colonial ?, Paris, PUF, 1978.
GIRARDET, Raoul, Le Nationalisme français, Anthologie, 1871-1914, Paris, Seuil, 1983.
GIRARDET, Raoul, L'Idée coloniale en France de 1871 à 1962, Paris, La Table Ronde, 1972.
5- Colonial Situations
October 7
Robert Aldrich, Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion, MacMillan, 1996 (Chapter 4, 6 and 7).
Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, eds., Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1997.
Read:
Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler "Between Metropole and Colony" (pp. 1-56); Ann Stoler, "Sexual Affronts and
Racial Frontiers : European Identities and the Cultural Politics of Exclusion in Colonial Southeast Asia" (pp. 198-237)
and Gwendolyn Wright "Tradition in the Service of Modernity" (pp. 322-345).
Suggested readings
Alice Conklin, A Mission to Civilize. The Republican Idea of Empire and West Africa, 1895-1930 , Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 1997.
BALANDIER, Georges, "La situation coloniale: approche théorique", Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, XI, 1951,
pp. 44-79.
6-Colonial Algeria
October 14
Charles-Robert Ageron, Modern Algeria. A History from 1830 to the Present, London, Hurst and Company, 1991
(chapter 1-9, pp. 1-128).
Fanny Colonna, "Educating Conformity in French Colonial Algeria" in Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, eds.,
Tensions of Empire, Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997, pp. 346370.
Pierre Bourdieu, The Algerians, Boston, Beacon Press, 1962 [1958] (chapter 6: "Desintegration and Distress", pp. 119144).
Suggested readings
Albert Camus, Le premier Homme, Gallimard, 1994
David Prochaska, Making Algeria French, Colonialism in Bône, 1870-1920, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1990.
Daniel Rivet, Le Maghreb à l'épreuve de la colonisation, Paris, Hachette Littératures, 2002
7-Immigration: history
October 21
Gérard Noiriel, The French Melting Pot. Immigration, Citizenship and National Identity, Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press, 1996, Chapters 2-8 (pp 45-264)
Suggested readings
Patrick Weil, La France et ses étrangers, L'aventure d'une politique de l'immigration, 1938-1991, Paris, Calmann-Lévy,
1991.
Gérard Noiriel, "L'immigration en France, Notes sur un enjeu", Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, Septembre
1984, pp 72-76.
Ralph Schor, Histoire de l'immigration en France de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle à nos jours, Paris, Armand Colin,
1996.
8-Immigration: sociology
October 28
Roxane Silberman, "French Immigration Statistics" in Donald Horowitz and Gérard Noiriel, Immigrants in Two
Democracies: French and American Experience, New York, New York University Press, 1992, pp. 112-123
Les Immigrés en France, Portrait social, Insee, 1997, Chapters 1 and 2 (pp 12-23; 26-39)
Michelle Tribalat, Faire France, Une enquête sur les immigrés et leurs enfants, Paris, La Découverte, 1995.
Introduction and Chapters 1-4 (pp. 8-111), chapter 8 and conclusion (pp. 183-225).
Suggested readings
Philippe Dewitte, ed., Immigration et intégration. L'état des savoirs, Paris, La Découverte, 1999.
9-Algerian Immigration: an examplary immigration?
November 4
Abdelmalek Sayad, "The Curse" and "Emancipation" in Pierre Bourdieu, The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in
Contemporary Society, Stanford, Stanford University Press, pp. 561-589.
Abdelmalek Sayad, "Les trois âges de l'immigration algérienne en France" in Actes de la recherche en Sciences
Sociales, 15, juin 1977, pp. 50-66.
Documentary Movie by Yamina Benguigui : "Mémoires d'immigrés" (1997).
Suggested readings
Abdelmalek Sayad, La Double Absence, Des Illusions de l'émigré aux souffrances de l'immigré, Paris, Seuil, 1999.
Abdelmalek Sayad, L'Immigration ou les paradoxes de l'altérité, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 1991.
10- Nationality and Citizenship
November 11
Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Harvard University Press, 1992 (chapters IV
and V, pp 75-113 and chapter VII, 138-164).
Patrick Weil, Qu'est-ce qu'un Français? Histoire de la nationalité française depuis la Révolution, Paris, Grasset, 2002
(chapters 4 and 8 pp. 97-134 and 211-246)
Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal, "Toward a Postnational Model of Membership" in Gershon Shafir, ed., The Citizenship
Debates, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1998, pp. 189-217.
Suggested readings
Dominique Colas, Claude Emeri, Jacques Zylberberg, eds., Citoyenneté et Nationalité. Perspectives en France et au
Québec, Paris, PUF, 1991.
Danièle Lochak, Etrangers: de quel droit?, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1985.
Abdelmalek Sayad, "La naturalisation" et "immigration et pensée d'Etat" in La Double Absence, Des Illusions de
l'émigré aux souffrances de l'immigré, Paris, Seuil, 1999 (chapitre 11 et 12, pp. 321-413)
11- Integration
November 18
Haut Commissariat à l'Intégration, L'Intégration à la Française, Paris, UGE, 1993 (Première Partie: "Pour un modèle
français d'intégration", pp. 21-58)
Miriam Feldblum, Reconstructing Citizenship: The Politics of Nationality Reform and Immigration in Contemporary
France, Albany, SUNY Press, 1999 (Chapitre 7, pp. 129-145)
Dominique Schnapper, La France de l'intégration, Paris, Gallimard, 1990 (chapitre 2, pp. 71-104)
Gérard Noiriel, The French Melting Pot: Immigration, Citizenship and National Identity, Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press, 1996 (conclusion, pp. 265-278)
Gérard Noiriel et Stéphane Beaud, "Penser l''intégration' des Immigrés", in Hommes et migrations, 1133, juin 1990, pp.
43-53.
Abdelmalek Sayad, "Qu'est-ce que l'Intégration?" In Hommes et Migrations, 1182, décembre 1994, pp. 8-14.
Suggested readings
Adrian Favell, Philosophies of Integration: Immigration and the Idea of Citizenship in France and Britain, New York,
Saint-Martin's Press, 1998.
Michel Wievorka, ed, Une Société fragmentée, Le multiculturalisme en débat, La Découverte/ Poche, Essais. 1996
12. Race and racism
November 25
Colette Guillaumin "Race and discourse" in Maxim Silverman, Race, Discourse and Power in France, Adershot,
Avebury, 1991, pp. 5-13.
Pierre-André Taguieff, The Force of Prejudice: On Racism and its Doubles, Minneapolis, University of Minnessota
Press, 2001 (introduction and chapters 1-3, pp. 1-109)
Tyler Stovall, “The Color Line behind the Lines: Racial Violence in France during the Great War”, The American
Historical Review, Vol. 103, No. 3. (June 1998), pp. 737-769.
Suggested readings
William H. Schneider, Quality and Quantity, The Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth Century France,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990
Mots, Les Langages du Politique, numéro spécial, "Sans distinction de Race", n° 33, Décembre 1992
Pierre Guiral et Emile Témime, L'Idée de race dans la politique française contemporaine, Paris, Editions du CNRS,
1977.
13 Race, policies and politics
December 2
Danièle Lochak, "La race: une catégorie juridique?" in Mots, Les Langages du Politique, numéro spécial, "Sans
distinction de Race", n° 33, Décembre 1992, 291-303.
Peter Davies, The National Front in France: Ideology, Discourse and Power, London, Routledge, 1999 (Introduction
and chapters 2 and 3, pp. 1-12 and pp. 65-165)
Jacqueline Blondel and Bernard Lacroix, "Pourquoi votent-ils Front National?" in Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau,
Le Front National à découvert, Paris, FNSP, 1996 (pp. 150-170).
Erik Bleich, "Antiracism without races: Politics and Policy in a "Color-Blind State", French Politics, Culture and
Society, volume 18, n°3, Fall 2000, pp. 48-74.
Skim the FN’s program on line (it can be downloaded on http://www.frontnational.com/)
Suggested Readings
Pierre-André Taguieff, ed, Face au racisme, Tome II: analyse, hypothèses, perspectives, La Découverte, 1991.
French Politics, Culture and Society, volume 18, n°3, Fall 2000, special issue on "Race in France".
Maxim Silverman, Immigration, Racism and Citizenship in Modern France, London and New York, Routledge, 1992.