Muriam Davis

This project interrogates how French and Algerian intellectuals debated the dominant interpretations of Islam from the Algerian war of Independence to the Civil War. If we take seriously Arkoun’s claim that hegemonic discourses and socio-cultural factors have been central to the study of Islam, then it is especially necessary to engage with the geopolitical climate in which ideas these ideas circulated between the two shores of the Mediterranean. Following, my research foregrounds the Franco-Algerian relationship as a major axis for understanding the genealogy of a Mediterranean Islam, thus departing from purely theological or intellectual approaches. Instead, I will study the geopolitical and institutional dynamics that informed these debates in French and Arabic. My project asks three main questions. First, how did the geopolitical events in Algeria alter dominant understandings of history, identity, and modernity in the Mediterranean region, especially their relationship with Islam? Second, how did Algerian intellectual trends and political conflicts influence the dominant frameworks of French social sciences? Thirdly, what were the commonalities and differences in how this Mediterranean Islam was understood in Algeria and France?