Tunisia in the Imperial Mediterranean at the Turn of the 20th Century - Mediterranean Exchanges Workshop Keynote by Mary Lewis, History, Harvard University March 29, 2012

Organized by the Institute for Advanced Study
1210 Heller Hall

Mary Lewis is a Professor of History at Harvard University where her work focuses on 19th and 20th Century French and European imperialism. Her current research interests center around international and imperial history, the history of rights, and the connections between international relations and everyday local life. Her book, The Boundaries of the Republic: Migrant Rights and the Limits of Universalism in France (Stanford University Press, 2007) was a co-winner of the 2008 James Willard Hurst Prize awarded by the Law and Society Association for the best book in sociolegal history. Her current project, “Divided Rule: Sovereignty and Empire in French Tunisia,” explores the impact of European imperial rivalry on social life and legal institutions in Tunisia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Organized by the Institute for Advanced Study's Mediterranean Identities Collaborative. The collaborative has focused its research on the theme, “Mediterranean Identities.” Identity is a much-contested analytic category. Despite the imprecision and ambiguity inherent in the construct, it allows for examination of hybridities and cultural translations that enrich our understanding of interactions and exchanges among peoples of the Mediterranean. This workshop, centered around the idea of "Mediterranean Exchange" permits us to expand our wide-ranging interdisciplinary and broad chronological explorations of this world with Minnesota scholars interested in the Mediterranean.

Official Website: http://www.ias.umn.edu/collabs11-12/MediterraneanIdentity1112.php