Publication of the book "L'orientalisme en train de se faire" (Orientalism in the making)

How can we rethink the notion of Orientalism from colonial Algeria, from the perspective of a social history? This is what contemporary researchers have set out to do, drawing on the correspondence of linguist René Basset (1855-1924), a specialist in Arabic and Berber languages.

July 2014. A truck from the Vosges arrives in Paris. It contains two wooden boxes and dozens of cartons: the
archives of René Basset, professor of Arabic and Berber at the Faculty of Letters in Algiers from 1880 to 1924. At the turn of the twentieth century, this colonial university, the only one in the French Empire, became one of the world's leading centers of scholarly Orientalism.
Based on this highly singular archive and at the end of a collective investigation, this book sets out to grasp this Orientalism in the making, that is, on a daily basis, in the Maghreb, in classrooms, and even in the intimacy of families. It thus invites us to rethink the category of Orientalism since colonial Algeria, through practices, from a social history perspective.
 

With contributions from Sarah Asset, Guy Basset, Marie Bossaert, Anna Anikpara Damon, Caroline Émin, Claire Fredj, Benjamin Guichard, Augustin Jomier, Gabriel Malek, Alain Messaoudi, Magali Nié, Élise Paysant, Juliette Ronsin, Naomi Russo, Margo Stemmelin, Emmanuel Szurek.