Lele (in and out) "Morocco"

From Colonial Histories to Post-Colonial Societies

Historians from Europe and the United States have often treated North Africa as marginal to the central dramas of the twentieth century.  This conference suggests that the view from Morocco, Algeria, or Tunisia might provide a privileged perspective on the unfolding of the recent past.  Although each of these modern nations share a legacy as former colonies of France, the different modes of colonial control in each region and the different patterns of accommodation and resistance to European imperialism shaped their histories in divergent ways.  Likewise, different areas within the Maghrib had their own relationship to political and religious movements emanating from the Middle East and elsewhere.  The experiences of the peoples of North Africa thus provide a useful comparative basis for contemporary reflection on the major turning points of the last hundred years:  on the legacies of colonialism and anti-colonial forms of nationalism, on the meaning of the cold war and its end, and on the emergence of post-colonial societies facing new challenges in the late twentieth century.  This conference brings scholars from North Africa to meet with specialists and students from two U.S. universities for a fruitful exchange of views and research agendas.