- https://www.geschichte.uni-konstanz.de/borutta/
- History, Mediterranean Studies, History of the Mediterranean, Modern Italian History, French colonialism, French History, and 14 moreGerman History, Italian colonialism, Middle East & North Africa, French colonial Algeria, Culture Wars, Secularization, Mediterranean Studies (Area Studies), Risorgimento, Politics of Secularism, Marseille, Cultural History, Anti-Catholicism, Port cities, and Southern Europeedit
This article explores the colonial roots of Fernand Braudel's „La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II“ and situates the study within current debates on the spatial turn. First published in 1949, „La... more
This article explores the colonial roots of Fernand Braudel's „La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II“ and situates the study within current debates on the spatial turn. First published in 1949, „La Méditerranée“ is still regarded as a manifesto of Mediterranean studies, and as a prelude to the spatial turn. Recently, the work has been criticized as a document of colonialist discourse and –coevally – celebrated as an antecedent of post-colonial thought. The article explains this ambivalence by reconstructing connections of Braudel's academic and private life in Algeria and France between 1923 und 1984. By analyzing his publications on North Africa and the Mediterranean, mostly unknown ego documents, letters, television broadcastings, and oral history interviews with his family relatives, the article shows that „La Méditerranée“ was not only a seminal scholarly work but also a personal expression of post-imperial nostalgia. However, despite its colonial roots, „La Méditerranée“ remains an inspiring text and a powerful reminder of the physical dimension of space that recently has been neglected by some followers of the spatial turn.
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The Mediterranean has been a colonial sea since ancient times. While historians of the pre- and early modern world still tend to describe this region with the Braudelian paradigms of unity and continuity, the historiography of the modern... more
The Mediterranean has been a colonial sea since ancient times. While historians of the pre- and early modern world still tend to describe this region with the Braudelian
paradigms of unity and continuity, the historiography of the modern Mediterranean suffers from the widespread fragmentation of national and regional studies, including
important contributions on the colonial history of North Africa and the Middle East. In this context, the editors invited scholars to re-think the Mediterranean of the nineteenth
and the first half of the twentieth century as a colonial and, most importantly, a colonised sea. Therefore the special issue brings together historians and geographers from North
Africa, Europe and North America in order to reconstruct colonial interactions, relationships, entanglements and shared experiences between Europe, the Maghreb and
the Middle East from late eighteenth century, when the European colonisation of the Mediterranean began, until the erosion of the imperial order in the 1950s.
paradigms of unity and continuity, the historiography of the modern Mediterranean suffers from the widespread fragmentation of national and regional studies, including
important contributions on the colonial history of North Africa and the Middle East. In this context, the editors invited scholars to re-think the Mediterranean of the nineteenth
and the first half of the twentieth century as a colonial and, most importantly, a colonised sea. Therefore the special issue brings together historians and geographers from North
Africa, Europe and North America in order to reconstruct colonial interactions, relationships, entanglements and shared experiences between Europe, the Maghreb and
the Middle East from late eighteenth century, when the European colonisation of the Mediterranean began, until the erosion of the imperial order in the 1950s.
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The Mediterranean Revisited: New Perspectives on a Contested Concept The Mediterranean is back on the agenda of the social sciences. Yet, in the field of 19th and 20th history this paradigm is almost absent. This article explores why... more
The Mediterranean Revisited: New Perspectives on a Contested Concept
The Mediterranean is back on the agenda of the social sciences. Yet, in the field of 19th and 20th history this paradigm is almost absent. This article explores why this is so and how this may be changed. It discusses various bodies of literature with regard to the Mediterranean perspectives they contain. On the one hand, we argue for a reflective update of Mediterranean history that further investigates the colonial genealogy of this spatial concept in order to overcome Orientalist and Mediterraneanist images which still influence the perception of the region. On the other hand, we suggest a combination of comparative and entangled history approaches in order to transcend the fragmentation of Mediterranean historiographies and get an integrated view of the late modern period of this region.
The Mediterranean is back on the agenda of the social sciences. Yet, in the field of 19th and 20th history this paradigm is almost absent. This article explores why this is so and how this may be changed. It discusses various bodies of literature with regard to the Mediterranean perspectives they contain. On the one hand, we argue for a reflective update of Mediterranean history that further investigates the colonial genealogy of this spatial concept in order to overcome Orientalist and Mediterraneanist images which still influence the perception of the region. On the other hand, we suggest a combination of comparative and entangled history approaches in order to transcend the fragmentation of Mediterranean historiographies and get an integrated view of the late modern period of this region.
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Au XIXe siècle, le Midi de la France a souvent été décrit comme une région figée et même en retard, alors qu’il a joué un rôle fondamental dans la colonisation algérienne, tout en étant le territoire le plus concerné par les retombées de... more
Au XIXe siècle, le Midi de la France a souvent été décrit comme une région figée et même en retard, alors qu’il a joué un rôle fondamental dans la colonisation algérienne, tout en étant le territoire le plus concerné par les retombées de cette dernière sur la métropole. Même la position du sud de la France dans l’imaginaire national a été affectée par ces liens : l’Algérie étant considérée comme une extension de l’Hexagone au fur et à mesure de son intégration à la vie nationale, le Midi a, parallèlement, glissé de la périphérie vers le centre de la nation. C’est avec ce contexte en arrière-plan que cet article analyse les représentations du Midi par
rapport à la colonisation de l’Algérie, en commençant par la marginalisation de cette région au xixe siècle, puis en montrant son passage de la périphérie au centre grâce à la conquête du sud de la Méditerranée, pour finir en évoquant les effets de la décolonisation sur l’histoire et l’image du sud de la France.
rapport à la colonisation de l’Algérie, en commençant par la marginalisation de cette région au xixe siècle, puis en montrant son passage de la périphérie au centre grâce à la conquête du sud de la Méditerranée, pour finir en évoquant les effets de la décolonisation sur l’histoire et l’image du sud de la France.
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This article explores the representation of Southern France during the colonial age of Algeria. During the nineteenth century, the French Midi was depicted as an exotic, backward or static borderland of the Occident and explicitly... more
This article explores the representation of Southern France during the colonial age of Algeria. During the nineteenth century, the French Midi was depicted as an exotic, backward or static borderland of the Occident and explicitly compared to French overseas colonies in North Africa. Yet, at the same time, the Midi played a crucial role for the colonization of
Algeria and became a dynamic hub of interactions with the Maghreb. When Algeria was integrated into the French territory in 1848, France’s national boundary was shifted towards the south, and the Midi held a central position within the Mediterranean empire of the nation. After decolonization, the Midi was disconnected from North Africa and marginalized again. Regionalists now described the region as an ‘internal colony’ of the French nation-state and
claimed for an ‘internal decolonization’ of the hexagon. In this way, the history and the representation of both regions continued to influence each other even after decolonization.
Algeria and became a dynamic hub of interactions with the Maghreb. When Algeria was integrated into the French territory in 1848, France’s national boundary was shifted towards the south, and the Midi held a central position within the Mediterranean empire of the nation. After decolonization, the Midi was disconnected from North Africa and marginalized again. Regionalists now described the region as an ‘internal colony’ of the French nation-state and
claimed for an ‘internal decolonization’ of the hexagon. In this way, the history and the representation of both regions continued to influence each other even after decolonization.
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As a master narrative of modernity, secularization was a product of the European Culture Wars. It was invented in the 1840s by male progressive elites who witnessed conflicts over the place and meaning of religion. Instead of... more
As a master narrative of modernity, secularization was a product of the European Culture Wars. It was invented in the 1840s by male progressive elites who witnessed conflicts over the place and meaning of religion. Instead of acknowledging the new religiosity of this period as a product of modernity, they described it as a medieval revival. At the same time, they began to narrate and to visualize the rise of modernity as a process of secularization: as a differentiation of religion from other 'spheres', a privatization of religion, or a disenchantment of the world. While secularization failed in practice, it succeeded on a theoretical level by influencingWestern conceptions of modernity.
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After 1945 and 1962, Germany and France received millions of refugees and expellees from Middle and Eastern Europe and from North Africa. Bringing together leading international scholars from both fields, this volume compares one of the... more
After 1945 and 1962, Germany and France received millions of refugees and expellees from Middle and Eastern Europe and from North Africa. Bringing together leading international scholars from both fields, this volume compares one of the largest instances of 'ethnic cleansing' – the Germans from the East (Vertriebene) – with the most important case of decolonization migration – the French repatriates of Algeria (pieds-noirs). By shifting the focus away from the origins and forms to the aftermath of these two examples of mass migration, the book explores to which extent postwar Europe was shaped by the integration of migrants. How did this process impact on the definition of citizenship and the construction of the welfare state in postwar Germany and France? How did it alter the associational and political landscape of both countries? Which marks did it leave on the public memory of crucial chapters in their national histories?