The Society of Fellows hosts the Thursday Lecture Series (TLS), which runs regularly throughout the academic year. The Fall Semester TLS, our Fellows present their own work, chaired by Columbia faculty.

"Beyond Nationality: Belonging and Empire in Ottoman North Africa”
Lecture by Youssef Ben Ismail
Chaired by Dorothea von Mücke

In September 1874, the Tunisian government issued a decree declaring that, from then on, all Algerians living under its jurisdiction would be considered local subjects. In practice, this meant that Algerians residing in Ottoman Tunis would no longer benefit from the broad array of extraterritorial rights they previously enjoyed as protected subjects of a French colony. But if Algerians in Tunis were no longer France’s protégés then what were they? What did it mean to be “from” Tunis in the nineteenth century? This lecture takes the status of Algerians in Tunis as a case study to explore the layered and multidimensional nature of subjecthood in Ottoman North Africa. Through a careful analysis of the category of ḥimāya, it suggests that we look beyond the European legal repertoire in order to understand conceptions and experiences of belonging outside of the West.

This event also will be recorded. By being electronically present, you consent to the SOF/Heyman using such video for promotional purposes.

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