Dr Rabah Aissaoui
Senior Lecturer in French
L.ès.L (Tours), MA (Leicester), PhD (Leeds)
Contact Details
- Tel: +44 (0)116 252 2686
- Fax: +44 (0)116 252 3633
- Email: ra75@le.ac.uk
- Subject: French
Research Summary
Dr Aissaoui’s research interests focus on immigration and racism in colonial and postcolonial France. He is particularly interested in the study of discourses on identity and exile, in the diasporic construction of nationalism and more specifically in expressions of ethnic, national and cultural belonging amongst Maghrebi migrants in France. He has researched and published on two particular political movements, the Etoile-Nord Africaine/Parti du Peuple Algérien in the interwar period and the MTA in 1970s France.
Other areas of interest include Franco-Algerian relations, the historical development of Algeria, as well as Francophonie (language and cultural expressions amongst marginalised populations in France and language policies in the Maghreb). He is also currently working on media representations of ethnic minorities in contemporary France. He conducted a joint research funded by the British academy on the discursive constructions of difference and the representation of Turkey in the European Press with Professor Ralph Negrine (University of Sheffield), Dr Beybin Kejanlioglu (University of Ankara) and Professor Stylianos Papathanassopoulos (University of Athens).
He is a member of the Advisory Committee (comité scientifique) of an EU-funded national exhibition project led by Génériques with Smain Laacher (Ecole des Hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris); Naïma Yahi (Université Paris VIII); Yvan Gastaut (Université de Nice); Linda Amiri (Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris). This national exhibition entitled ‘Générations: un siècle d’histoire culturelle des Maghrébins en France’ was in Lyon in the summer of 2009 and will be housed at the newly opened Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris, from the end of 2009 to Spring 2010.
Dr Aissaoui is a member of the following societies: Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF); Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies (SFPS); Scientific Committee, Génériques (Paris).
PhD Supervision
Dr Aissaoui is co-supervising Sadie Skinner on ‘Liminality and Power in Francophone African Slave Narratives’ (with Dr E. H. Jones).
Teaching
- Immigration and Ethnicity of Colonial and Postcolonial France
- Introduction à la Francophonie
- Civilisation française
- European Texts in Translation
- Modern French Langue (Final Year)
- Modern French Language (Second Year)
- MA Humanities
External Funding
- AHRC Research Leave Award - Research project title: ‘The Politics of Identity and Migration’ (2006-7)
- British Academy Small Research Grant Award (January 2007)
- British Academy Small Grant Award (joint project led by Prof. Ralph Negrine, January 2005)
- British Academy Overseas Conference Grant Award (January 2007)
- Enrichment Funds Award (Association of American Geographers, April 2007)
Most Recent Publications
‘Les manifestations culturelles dans les meetings politiques de l’ENA-PPA dans l’entre-deux guerres’, ‘Générations: un siècle d’histoire culturelle des Maghrébins en France’, catalogue for national exhibition, Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris, December 2009.
Immigration and National identity: North African political Movements in Colonial and Postcolonial France, London, New York: Tauris Academic Studies, December 2008
