- Department of History
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Koç University
Rumeli Feneri Yolu 34450 Sarıyer
Istanbul - +90(0)5300695293
Alexis Rappas
Koç University, History, Faculty Member
- Colonialism, Mediterranean Studies, Subaltern Studies, British Empire, European History, Modern Greek History, and 27 moreOttoman History, Anthropology, History and Memory, Greek History, Ethnic Conflict and Civil War, Labor History and Studies, Italian (European History), Cyprus Studies, Imperialism, Empire, Orthodox Christianity, Social Engineering, Dodecanese, Colonialism Cyprus Subaltern, Cyprus Civil Servants, British Colonial Cyprus, Gender Studies, Religion, Identity (Culture), Identity politics, History of the Mediterranean, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Modern Greece, History of Cyprus, Islands, History, and Turkish and Middle East Studiesedit
- Alexis Rappas is an associate professor of history at Koç University. His research focuses on European colonialism in... moreAlexis Rappas is an associate professor of history at Koç University. His research focuses on European colonialism in post-Ottoman settings and his current project involves the transformation of property regimes in the post-Ottoman Levantedit
Cyprus in the 1930s charts the history of the island in this period, and details British attempts to impose a homogeneous 'Cypriot' culture onto a diverse and divided population. Community leaders and the hierarchy of the Church, who had... more
Cyprus in the 1930s charts the history of the island in this period, and details British attempts to impose a homogeneous 'Cypriot' culture onto a diverse and divided population. Community leaders and the hierarchy of the Church, who had functioned as bridges between local interests, were marginalised as Britain attempted to engineer unification through education and social policy. The result was a radicalisation of both Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot identity. Based on primary source material from Britain, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, Rappas analyses British state-building and the role of Cypriot ethnicities in the formation of modern Cyprus.
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This article reveals how, in the interwar period, British colonial authorities in Cyprus borrowed from the combination of political authoritarianism and economic development characterising Italian rule in the neighbouring Dodecanese, as... more
This article reveals how, in the interwar period, British colonial authorities in Cyprus borrowed from the combination of political authoritarianism and economic development characterising Italian rule in the neighbouring Dodecanese, as both a solution to Greek irredentism and an administration suitable to ‘Mediterranean populations’. British authorities shunned, nonetheless, the chronopolitics and biopolitics buttressing fascist governance, which aimed at the political and cultural assimilation of Dodecanesians into the Italian national community. In conversation with the literature on imperial formations, the article therefore highlights the forms and limitations of the circulation of administrative practices and ideas across European colonial boundaries.
Research Interests: Italian (European History), Italian Studies, British History, Cyprus Studies, Fascism, and 12 moreColonialism, Mediterranean Studies, Italy (History), Mediterranean, Modern Greece, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Fascism and Modernism, History of the Mediterranean, History of Cyprus, Cyprus, Imperialism, and Dodecanese
This paper focuses on the articulation between property, sovereignty, and the construction of new political subjectivities in post-Ottoman provinces. Drawing on the cases of British Cyprus, the Italian Dodecanese, and French Mandatory... more
This paper focuses on the articulation between property, sovereignty, and the construction of new political subjectivities in post-Ottoman provinces. Drawing on the cases of British Cyprus, the Italian Dodecanese, and French Mandatory Syria, it shows that European sovereign claims on these territories were pursued through the perpetuation of Ottoman land laws and the reorganisation of the judicial system responsible for implementing them. Dictated by the enduring legal uncertainty regarding the international status of these three provinces, this peculiar path to imperium did not deter European officials from working towards the ambitious goal of creating a class of individual peasant-proprietors, protected in their rights by colonial courts. Acknowledging the differences between these projects, their mutual influences, as well as their relative failure, the article contends that they nonetheless impel us to envision the transition from “Ottoman” to “European” rule as a gradual, multilayered process, instead of a sudden break.
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This paper is an investigation into a triple homicide in the French Mandate of Syria in 1925. It first suggests that the official decision to single out the murder of three French land registry employees in the midst of the Great Syrian... more
This paper is an investigation into a triple homicide in the French Mandate of Syria in 1925. It first suggests that the official decision to single out the murder of three French land registry employees in the midst of the Great Syrian Revolt, a two-year war against French imperial rule, is revealing of the Mandate’s attempts to legitimize its dominion over Syria. It then argues that the capacity in which the three slain agents operated, as employees tasked with the break-up of mushâ’ properties, is central to their demise. Indeed the Mandate advertised the individualization of mushâ’ holdings (based on a rotation of land use rights) as a rational measure meant to improve living standards in rural Syria. But Syrian rebels also perceived such interventions as an attempt by French authorities to circumvent the Mandate-imposed restrictions to their authority through the construction of what is here called ‘material sovereignty.’
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This article argues that property law is the main means through which Britain built its imperial sovereignty on Cyprus and in the post-Ottoman Levant. It charts the development of an official British expertise in Ottoman land legislation... more
This article argues that property law is the main means through which Britain built its imperial sovereignty on Cyprus and in the post-Ottoman Levant. It charts the development of an official British expertise in Ottoman land legislation following the so-called affair of the Sultan's claims to properties in Cyprus. To settle this matter in the island which they had obtained to ‘occupy’ and ‘administer’ through a treaty with the Sublime Porte, colonial authorities were compelled to become conversant with the 1858 Ottoman Land Code. Hence, the article argues that because of its ambiguous status – a province occupied and administered by Britain but under the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan from 1878 to 1914 – Cyprus, as the first Ottoman territory to pass under direct Western rule, played a decisive role in the elaboration of a colonial knowledge in Ottoman land laws. And this, despite long-standing economic and political ties between Britain and the Ottoman Empire and exposure to other settings where layered land tenure systems prevailed. Published in treatises authored by British administrators of Cyprus, the legal expertise in Ottoman land law thus acquired was then transposed to other territories which passed under British rule, such as Palestine.
Research Interests: Jurisprudence, Ottoman History, International Law, Legal History, Cyprus Studies, and 14 moreColonialism, Legal Pluralism, Palestine, Ottoman Studies, Ottoman Empire, Empires, British Empire, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), History of Cyprus, Cyprus, Late Ottoman Period, Empire, British Mandate, Palestine, and Colonialism and Imperialism
This paper focuses on the use of the British Colony of Cyprus as a clearing ground for Jewish refugees on route to Palestine before, during, and after the Second World War. While acknowledging the historiographical consensus underscoring... more
This paper focuses on the use of the British Colony of Cyprus as a clearing ground for Jewish refugees on route to Palestine before, during, and after the Second World War. While acknowledging the historiographical consensus underscoring Cyprus’ renewed strategic importance in the context of British post-Second World War imperial retreat in the East, the article argues that Jewish transmigration revealed new potential uses for the island which in turn contributed to confirm British sovereignty in that possession. Drawing on British and Cypriot sources, the article further shows the transformative impact of Jewish transmigration for Cyprus politics as it induced British authorities, who had established an authoritarian regime in the island in the 1930s, to invoke Cypriot reactions in order to stem the flow of refugees to the island. This paved the way for future policies meant to redefine the relations between rulers and ruled. As the management of refugees coming to Cyprus during the period under scrutiny relied on ever more refined instruments of classification, the paper finally highlights the contribution of Empire to the crafting of official categories to designate people on the move—‘refugees’, ‘illegal immigrants’—which still inform European migration policies.
Research Interests: Jewish Studies, Refugee Studies, Cyprus Studies, Israel/Palestine, British Imperial & Commonwelath History - 19th & 20th century, and 15 moreColonialism, Jewish History, Palestine, Mediterranean Studies, Holocaust Studies, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), History of the Mediterranean, Cyprus, British Imperialism, Refugee Camps, History of Palestine and Israel, Imperialism, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Refugee memory, and Colonialism and Imperialism
This paper is based on a close reading of Greek and Rodesli (Rhodian Jewish) narratives focusing on the time when Rhodes was under Italian (1912–1943) and then German (1943–1945) rule, the last period when religiously diverse communities... more
This paper is based on a close reading of Greek and Rodesli (Rhodian Jewish) narratives focusing on the time when Rhodes was under Italian (1912–1943) and then German (1943–1945) rule, the last period when religiously diverse communities coexisted in the island. While Greek historiography seeks to vindicate the island’s final integration into the Greek national space, Rodesli memory is meant to preserve the heritage of a community destroyed by the Nazis. Notably, these corpuses make no references to one another. This phenomenon of soliloquy, the article argues, is illustrative of a competitive memory characteristic of recollections of the past in the eastern Mediterranean and challenges nostalgic invocations of a pre-national, “cosmopolitan” Mediterranean. Broadening the discussion to other post-Ottoman settings, the article draws attention to property redistribution in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing as a major factor in the separation of memory along communal lines. Noting the omnipresence of the figure of the “ghost” in the literature on the region, the paper finally explores the heuristic potential of hauntology to conceive histories of the region that would be inclusive and yet attentive to the differences in the nature, purpose and reciprocal indifference of the sources and of the asymmetrical relations of power in which they were produced.
Research Interests: Greek History, Jewish Studies, Italian Studies, Postcolonial Studies, History and Memory, and 13 moreColonialism, Jewish History, Memory Studies, Holocaust Studies, Modern Greek History, Collective Memory, Modern Jewish History, Greece, Imperialism, Italian colonialism, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Rhodes, and Colonialism and Imperialism
A vast literature has documented the key role of inter-communal violence, population transfers and the reallocation of confiscated property in the consolidation of mutually exclusive national identities in the interwar successor states of... more
A vast literature has documented the key role of inter-communal violence, population transfers and the reallocation of confiscated property in the consolidation of mutually exclusive national identities in the interwar successor states of the Ottoman Empire. Despite their analytical sophistication, these studies adopt for the most part a statocentric perspective on the nationalization of identities in the Eastern Mediterranean. This article revisits this narrative by highlighting the initiatives of Christians and Muslims defying the political identities assigned to them by the Greek-Turkish 1923 Treaty of Lausanne with a view to preserve their properties. Settled in the Italian-controlled Dodecanese, these historical actors leverage on the fascist authorities’ colonial anxieties regarding their contested sovereignty in the recently (1912) occupied Dodecanese and on the Mussolinian government’s objective to bolster its political prestige in the broader region. By so doing this article argues that these Christians and Muslims become co-creators of a new “Aegean” or “minor Italian” citizenship positioning them at the apex of the Italian colonial hierarchy. Challenging the axiomatic correspondence between political identity and territory in the historiography on the nationalization of senses of belonging in the interwar Eastern Mediterranean, this article thus highlights processes of “translocality.” To the extent in which the Italian government borrows more from an “national” rather than “imperial” repertoire to defend internationally the interests of their subjects, this paper further questions the normative opposition between “colonial empire” and “nation” as two mutually incommensurable political formations.
Une riche historiographie internationale a mis en lumière le rôle des violences intercommunautaires, des transferts de population et de la redistribution massive de propriétés dans la consolidation des identités nationales dans les États successeurs de l’Empire ottoman pendant l’entre-deux-guerres. En dépit de précautions analytiques, l’essentiel de ces études offre une représentation statocentrée de la nationalisation des appartenances en Méditerranée orientale. Cet article revisite ce récit en s’appuyant sur les démarches entamées par des chrétiens orthodoxes et des musulmans contestant les identités politiques qui leur sont assignées suite au traité gréco-turc de Lausanne de 1923, dans le but de préserver leurs propriétés. Établis dans le Dodécanèse alors sous administration italienne, ces acteurs s’appuient sur les anxiétés coloniales des autorités fascistes concernant leur souveraineté contestée sur cet archipel récemment occupé (1912) et sur la volonté du gouvernement mussolinien de renforcer l’influence de l’Italie dans la région. Ce faisant ils deviennent co-concepteurs d’une nouvelle citoyenneté « égéenne » ou « italienne mineure » qui les place au sommet de la hiérarchie coloniale italienne. Cet article montre la mise en œuvre de « translocalités » au sens où il remet en cause la correspondance axiomatique entre identité politique et territoire en vigueur dans la théorie de la nationalisation des appartenances dans la Méditerranée orientale de l’entre-deux-guerres. Dans la mesure où le gouvernement italien utilise un répertoire national plus qu’« impérial » pour défendre les intérêts de ses sujets coloniaux, l’article questionne également l’opposition normative entre « empire colonial » et « nation » comme deux formations politiques incommensurables l’une à l’autre.
Une riche historiographie internationale a mis en lumière le rôle des violences intercommunautaires, des transferts de population et de la redistribution massive de propriétés dans la consolidation des identités nationales dans les États successeurs de l’Empire ottoman pendant l’entre-deux-guerres. En dépit de précautions analytiques, l’essentiel de ces études offre une représentation statocentrée de la nationalisation des appartenances en Méditerranée orientale. Cet article revisite ce récit en s’appuyant sur les démarches entamées par des chrétiens orthodoxes et des musulmans contestant les identités politiques qui leur sont assignées suite au traité gréco-turc de Lausanne de 1923, dans le but de préserver leurs propriétés. Établis dans le Dodécanèse alors sous administration italienne, ces acteurs s’appuient sur les anxiétés coloniales des autorités fascistes concernant leur souveraineté contestée sur cet archipel récemment occupé (1912) et sur la volonté du gouvernement mussolinien de renforcer l’influence de l’Italie dans la région. Ce faisant ils deviennent co-concepteurs d’une nouvelle citoyenneté « égéenne » ou « italienne mineure » qui les place au sommet de la hiérarchie coloniale italienne. Cet article montre la mise en œuvre de « translocalités » au sens où il remet en cause la correspondance axiomatique entre identité politique et territoire en vigueur dans la théorie de la nationalisation des appartenances dans la Méditerranée orientale de l’entre-deux-guerres. Dans la mesure où le gouvernement italien utilise un répertoire national plus qu’« impérial » pour défendre les intérêts de ses sujets coloniaux, l’article questionne également l’opposition normative entre « empire colonial » et « nation » comme deux formations politiques incommensurables l’une à l’autre.
Research Interests: Italian Studies, Property Rights, Sovereignty, Property Law, Fascism, and 14 moreProperty, Mediterranean Studies, Mediterranean, Turkey, Modern Greek History, History of the Mediterranean, Modern Turkey, Minorities in Turkey, Translocality, Greece, Italian colonialism, Crete, Dodecanese, and Population Exchange
This article records and offers to interpret a parallel hardening of British and Italian colonial governances in the Eastern Mediterranean in the interwar period. It focuses on the cases of the Dodecanese, an Italian ‘Possedimento’ since... more
This article records and offers to interpret a parallel hardening of British and Italian colonial governances in the Eastern Mediterranean in the interwar period. It focuses on the cases of the Dodecanese, an Italian ‘Possedimento’ since 1912, and Cyprus, a British dependency since 1878, lying on the geographical and cultural margins of, and the border between, these two colonial empires. Building on the recurrent cross-references between British and Italian colonial systems in British, Italian and Greek archives, official and unofficial, this article highlights the circulation of administrative ideas and practices across imperial boundaries. It suggests that British and Italian authorities saw in enosis, or the union with Greece advocated by the Orthodox majorities under their rule, an opportunity to implement an authoritarian form of governance potentially transposable to other Mediterranean settings. Engaging with current debates on inter-imperial transfers, this article enquires into colonial policymaking as the outcome of a mutually productive exchange across territorial frontiers and assumed ideological differences.
Research Interests: History, Italian (European History), Italian Studies, Transnational and World History, Transnationalism, and 16 moreFascism, Colonialism, Mediterranean Studies, Transnational History, Mediterranean, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), History of the Mediterranean, Interwar Period History, British Imperialism, Italy, Imperialism, Italian fascism, Colonial Studies, Interwar period, 1919 - 1939, Interwar Europe, and Colonialism and Imperialism
Cet article constate et tente d’interpréter un durcissement parallèle des gouvernances coloniales britannique et italienne en Méditerranée orientale dans les années 1930 en s’appuyant sur les exemples de Rhodes, l’île majeure du... more
Cet article constate et tente d’interpréter un durcissement parallèle des gouvernances coloniales britannique et italienne en Méditerranée orientale dans les années 1930 en s’appuyant sur les exemples de Rhodes, l’île majeure du Possedimento italien du Dodécanèse depuis 1912, et de Chypre, sous domination britannique depuis 1878. Face à l’Enosis, mouvement irrédentiste grec prônant l’union avec la Grèce indépendante, le tournant autoritaire des administrations en place a pu sembler parfaitement compatible avec l’idéologie fasciste dans le cas italien ; on a en revanche souligné son « l’exceptionnalité » dans une tradition impériale britannique par ailleurs « libérale ». Plutôt que de distinguer et donc de réifier ces deux traditions impériales, nous proposons ici d’envisager l’Enosis comme le prétexte justifiant la mise en place d’une gouvernance coloniale expérimentale, issue d’une interfécondation des projets coloniaux britannique et italien. L’objectif de cet article, méthodologiquement inspiré par l’histoire croisée, est d’évaluer la mesure dans laquelle ces expérimentations coloniales préfigurent une tradition de gouvernement autoritaire qui se construirait par le transnational et dont la Méditerranée semble être depuis restée le laboratoire.
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How to narrate the experience of the Greeks who lived under European colonial rule? Greek nationalist historiography ignores the colonial dimension and links this experience to the grand narrative of the struggle of unredeemed Greeks... more
How to narrate the experience of the Greeks who lived under European colonial rule? Greek nationalist historiography ignores the colonial dimension and links this experience to the grand narrative of the struggle of unredeemed Greeks against foreign domination. By contrast, revisionist accounts challenge the pervasiveness of 'national sentiment' among subjected Greeks and stress the coercive nature of nationalism. Based on micro-analyses of cases drawn from Cyprus under British rule and the Dodecanese under Italian rule in the 1930s, an assessment is made of the practical significance, in the daily lives of these colonial subjects, of the conflicting imperatives of national allegiance and imperial loyalty.
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Taking as a starting point two strikes in colonial Cyprus in the 1930s—the miners' strike in 1936 in which both Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots were involved and the all-female spinners' strike in 1938—this paper looks at how the... more
Taking as a starting point two strikes in colonial Cyprus in the 1930s—the miners' strike in 1936 in which both Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots were involved and the all-female spinners' strike in 1938—this paper looks at how the labor movement deeply transformed the political landscape of the island. In a society closely monitored by British colonial authorities and well acquainted with the Greek-Cypriot claim for Enosis, or the political union of Cyprus with Greece, the labor question became a locus, or “interstice of power structure,” articulating competing and mutually exclusive visions of Cyprus as a polity. More generally the paper investigates the modalities of formation of a collective group allegiance in a context of constraint.
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As historical and anthropological studies show, British colonial rule contributed decisively to the institutionalisation, politicisation and deterioration of intercommunal differences in Cyprus. However at the same time as British... more
As historical and anthropological studies show, British colonial rule contributed decisively to the institutionalisation, politicisation and deterioration of intercommunal differences in Cyprus. However at the same time as British colonial authorities implemented divisive policies, they created one institution necessitating the smooth cooperation between Greek and Turkish Cypriots: the colonial bureaucracy, the structure and function of which remains understudied. Based on the cases of three Cypriots appealing against their dismissal from the colonial civil service, this paper argues that exploring the uncharted world of ‘native’ employees provides important insights into the inconsistencies underpinning British rule. Indeed, the debates prompted by the dismissal procedures shows that notions such as ‘nationality’, ‘loyalty’, ‘legality’ and ‘civilisation’ constituting the ideological foundations of colonial rule are rather indeterminate. The article makes a case for the study of subaltern Cypriots as a vantage point to explore the points of articulation and cross-fertilisation between colonial morality and local self-representations.
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This paper offers to disentangle the multiple geographies –local, regional and global-, in which the wall of Nicosia, Cyprus, is inserted. Specifically, while acknowledging its central role in identity-formation among Greek and Turkish... more
This paper offers to disentangle the multiple geographies –local, regional and global-, in which the wall of Nicosia, Cyprus, is inserted. Specifically, while acknowledging its central role in identity-formation among Greek and Turkish Cypriots, it argues that perpetual representations of the Green Line as a site of interethnic or international conflict overshadow its current geopolitical significance as a global frontier of Europe. The paper first describes the position of the Green Line in Nicosia’s contemporary urban fabric and moves on to recount the events that led to its edification. It then proceeds to revisit the official memories associated with the wall on either of its sides and examines current civil society initiatives challenging these ethno-national narratives. Untangling memory and social practice, it then proceeds to examine what discordant official memories and current discourses on the wall, postcolonial and ethno-national, leave out of their story, namely the wall’s current function as Europe’s easternmost border.
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In 1931, an uprising of Greek Cypriots proclaiming “Enosis” (political union of Cyprus [with Greece]) swept the island of Cyprus, then a British colony. Rapidly recovering from the initial shock, British authorities seized the opportunity... more
In 1931, an uprising of Greek Cypriots proclaiming “Enosis” (political union of Cyprus [with Greece]) swept the island of Cyprus, then a British colony. Rapidly recovering from the initial shock, British authorities seized the opportunity to abolish representative institutions (long considered an impediment to the sound administration of the island) and impose limitations on freedom of expression. Under Governor Sir Richmond Palmer, an era of authoritarian rule began. The broader aim of British rule in the 1930s was to reshape Cyprus as an ideal polity, whose inhabitants would thrive materially and civically; however, the two preconditions for the establishment of such a polity—the neutralization of local politics and the international isolation of the island—would be rendered unattainable owing to the activity of Greek-Cypriot notables who seized the opportunity of a vacancy in the Throne of the Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus to restructure a political arena with international ramifications.
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The colonial government of Cyprus was composed by an overwhelming majority of “indigenous” civil servants, headed by a handful of British administrators. Challenging the widely accepted representation of the Cypriot colonial civil servant... more
The colonial government of Cyprus was composed by an overwhelming majority of “indigenous” civil servants, headed by a handful of British administrators. Challenging the widely accepted representation of the Cypriot colonial civil servant as a mere performer of the British policy in Cyprus, this paper proposes a microanalysis of two cases taken from 1928: alternatively the recruitment of a higher, and the dismissal of a subaltern, Cypriot civil servant. Contrasting these two cases, the paper suggests that the split identity of the Cypriot civil servant, both a “Cypriot” and a “colonial official”, constituted a political stake both for the British authorities and the local press. It further suggests that the lower his position, the more the Cypriot colonial servant could actively participate in the elaboration of an identity which would safeguard certain of his rights, sometimes forcing his employer, the colonial government, to respect them.
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This chapter examines the politics of time—or chronopolitics—deployed by Italian authorities in the Dodecanese and the local reactions this elicited. An examination of this chronocenosis, or confrontation between references to time past... more
This chapter examines the politics of time—or chronopolitics—deployed by Italian authorities in the Dodecanese and the local reactions this elicited. An examination of this chronocenosis, or confrontation between references to time past and future, invoked both by the fascist administration as a title to rule and by the Dodecanesians themselves as a claim to entitlements, offers important insights into Italian colonial governance in the interwar period. In this case, it explains that despite Italian efforts to replace it with “modernity,” a pre-Italian, “Ottoman” past perpetuated itself in the power relations and the institutions created in the archipelago.
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Research Interests: Gender Studies, Greek History, Jewish Studies, Italian Studies, Gender History, and 22 moreIsland Studies, Race and Racism, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Ethnicity, Fascism, Colonialism, Jewish History, Mediterranean Studies, Post-Colonialism, Mediterranean, Racism, Modern Greece, History of the Mediterranean, Empire, Citizenship, Greece, Imperialism, Italian fascism, Dodecanese, Colonial Studies, Islands, and Colonialism and Imperialism
In his seminal work on The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Fernand Braudel captured the double nature of islands in history: at once linked to other worlds and worlds unto themselves. The historiography... more
In his seminal work on The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Fernand Braudel captured the double nature of islands in history: at once linked to other worlds and worlds unto themselves. The historiography involving the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean often sacrifices one of these dimensions. This article focuses on two case studies drawn from the island of Rhodes in the 1930s, then an Italian colony: a Muslim-Catholic marriage and a Greek-Jewish gambling circle. It suggests that to simultaneously grasp all of the possible spatial configurations of an island it is necessary to question the perspective of the historical actors themselves. Exploring the significance of insularity on ethnic identity formation in a colonial setting it suggests that this can only be done adopting a microhistorical perspective.
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Research Interests: Ancient History, Modern History, Roman History, Ottoman History, Medieval History, and 12 moreEarly Modern History, Imperial History, Colonialism, Mediterranean Studies, Post-Colonialism, Mediterranean, Empires, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), History of the Mediterranean, Empire, Fernand Braudel, and Imperialism
Research Interests: Imperial History, British Imperial & Commonwelath History - 19th & 20th century, Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Empires, and 11 moreFrench colonialism, British Empire, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), History of Imperialism, Decolonialization, Empire, Decolonial Thought, Imperialism, Decolonization, Colonial Studies, and Colonialism and Imperialism
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Review of Leonidas Karakatsanis and Nikolaos Papadogiannis, eds., The Politics of Culture in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus: Performing the Left Since the Sixties. London: Routledge, 2017. 321 pp.
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L’étiquette impériale, les rituels ou encore les codes vestimentaires impriment sur les corps la différence entre gouvernants et gouvernés, selon une dynamique de normativation des corps et des conduites désormais bien connue des... more
L’étiquette impériale, les rituels ou encore les codes vestimentaires impriment sur les corps la différence entre gouvernants et gouvernés, selon une dynamique de normativation des corps et des conduites désormais bien connue des historiens comme des anthropologues.
De façon moins ostentatoire, mais peut-être – et de ce fait même – plus efficace, le pouvoir impérial se pérennise également en se disant et en s’écrivant : le langage officiel, les catégories sur lesquels il repose, et qu’il reproduit en les énonçant, est inséparable de sa finalité pratique.
Par définition le langage impérial ne devient politique qu’une fois traduit dans ou de l’idiome local ; s’il découle d’une tradition bureaucratique métropolitaine dont les origines s’estompent, il s’incarne dans le travail de traduction ou d’interprétation d’intermédiaires locaux. Souvent négligés par l’historiographie, ces derniers – traducteurs, scribes, interprètes consulaires, employés de l’administration coloniale, élite semi-coloniale – sont pourtant les rouages importants de la « mécanique impériale », et disposent d’un pouvoir aussi étendu qu’insoupçonné.
Cette journée d’étude a pour ambition de mettre en lumière les processus d’hybridation à l’œuvre dans l’exercice du pouvoir impérial, à travers une étude des modalités de traduction de ce dernier. Le cadre méditerranéen se prête tout particulièrement à l’étude, puisqu’une tradition pluriséculaire d’inter-traductions des langues méditerranéennes – sans compter la revendication d’un « héritage culturel » commun – génère, de part et d’autre de l’interface impériale, un sentiment de familiarité trompeuse. La perspective adoptée est résolument trans-impériale : l’enjeu est en effet de comparer les terrains coloniaux européens et extra-européens dans une double perspective diachronique (car axée sur la transition d’une configuration à l’autre) et synchronique (car centrée sur l’évaluation des différences et similarités entre cas particuliers). Le choix a été fait de limiter l’analyse à la période contemporaine, soit au moment de la consolidation et d’une certaine standardisation des langages administratifs et commerciaux.
De façon moins ostentatoire, mais peut-être – et de ce fait même – plus efficace, le pouvoir impérial se pérennise également en se disant et en s’écrivant : le langage officiel, les catégories sur lesquels il repose, et qu’il reproduit en les énonçant, est inséparable de sa finalité pratique.
Par définition le langage impérial ne devient politique qu’une fois traduit dans ou de l’idiome local ; s’il découle d’une tradition bureaucratique métropolitaine dont les origines s’estompent, il s’incarne dans le travail de traduction ou d’interprétation d’intermédiaires locaux. Souvent négligés par l’historiographie, ces derniers – traducteurs, scribes, interprètes consulaires, employés de l’administration coloniale, élite semi-coloniale – sont pourtant les rouages importants de la « mécanique impériale », et disposent d’un pouvoir aussi étendu qu’insoupçonné.
Cette journée d’étude a pour ambition de mettre en lumière les processus d’hybridation à l’œuvre dans l’exercice du pouvoir impérial, à travers une étude des modalités de traduction de ce dernier. Le cadre méditerranéen se prête tout particulièrement à l’étude, puisqu’une tradition pluriséculaire d’inter-traductions des langues méditerranéennes – sans compter la revendication d’un « héritage culturel » commun – génère, de part et d’autre de l’interface impériale, un sentiment de familiarité trompeuse. La perspective adoptée est résolument trans-impériale : l’enjeu est en effet de comparer les terrains coloniaux européens et extra-européens dans une double perspective diachronique (car axée sur la transition d’une configuration à l’autre) et synchronique (car centrée sur l’évaluation des différences et similarités entre cas particuliers). Le choix a été fait de limiter l’analyse à la période contemporaine, soit au moment de la consolidation et d’une certaine standardisation des langages administratifs et commerciaux.
Research Interests: Cyprus Studies, Colonialism, Mediterranean Studies, Mediterranean, British Empire, and 8 moreCyprus conflict, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), History of the Mediterranean, History of Cyprus, History of the British Empire, Imperialism, Cyprus and the East Mediterranean, and Colonialism and Imperialism
Élites et familles méditerranéennes influentes en politique, XIX e-XX e siècles / La parfumerie grassoise dans tous ses états
