Johannes Becke
Johannes Becke is a PhD student at the Freie Universität Berlin (Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies, BTS). Funded by a PhD scholarship by the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), in his PhD dissertation he investigates the territorial expansion of postcolonial states in the Middle East, comparing Israel’s rule over territories captured in 1967, the Syrian military presence in Lebanon and Morocco’s partial annexation of Western Sahara. In the framework of his field research, he spent research stays at the Hebrew University (Jerusalem), the German Orient Institute (Beirut) and the Centre Jacques Berque (Rabat). In the academic year 2012/13, Johannes is a Minerva Fellow (Max Planck Society) at the Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University.
His fields of interest include civil-military relations, the history of postcolonial state formation in the Middle East, and the epistemology of Occidentalism.
Email: becke@
Samuel Feldberg
Samuel Feldberg, PhD (University of São Paulo, 2004), is a Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer on International Conflicts at the History Graduate Program at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is also the Middle East area Coordinator at the Group for International Conjuncture Analysis. His field of specialization is Holocaust Studies and the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, and his current research deals with asymmetric warfare in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and the history of the Zaglembie community during the Holocaust.
Email: sfeldberg@uol.com.br
Iris Seri-Hersch
Iris Seri-Hersch, PhD (Aix-Marseille Université, 2012), is a postdoc fellow at the Institut de Recherches et d’Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman (IREMAM) in Aix-en-Provence, France. In her PhD dissertation, she investigated history teaching in colonial and early postcolonial Sudan. Funded by a Swiss National Science Foundation grant, her current research project aims at writing a social history of Jisr al-Zarqa (an Arab Israeli coastal village) from a transnational perspective, using both written and oral sources. In September and October 2012, and in the Spring of 2013, Iris is a Visiting Scholar at the Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University.
Her fields of interest include the history of modern Israel/Palestine and Sudan, trans-imperial migrations, education in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the British Empire, the epistemology and pedagogy of history, and textbook research.
Email: iris_hersch@yahoo.ca
PhD dissertation
Histoire scolaire, impérialisme et décolonisation: le cas du Soudan anglo-égyptien (1945-1958) [History Teaching, Imperialism and Decolonization in the Anglo-Egyptian (1945-1958)]. Aix-Marseille Université, France, 2012. Online pdf version (in French): http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00700410
Recent publications & papers (in English)
“Between Ideological Security and Intellectual Plurality: Colonialism and Globalization in Northern Sudanese Educational Discourses”, in Assal Munzoul, Barbarba Casciarri and François Ireton (eds.), Reshaping Livelihoods, Political Conflicts and Identities in Contemporary Sudan, forthcoming. Abstract
“Towards Social Progress and Post-Imperial Modernity? Colonial Politics of Literacy in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1946-1956”, History of Education, Vol. 40(3), 2011, p. 333-356. Abstract
“Did Friends and Enemies Change Upon Decolonization? A Sudanese History Handbook for Elementary Schools, 1949-1958”, in Djurovic Arsen and Eva Matthes (eds.), Freund- und Feindbilder in Schulbüchern / Concepts of Friends and Enemies in Schoolbooks. Beiträge zur historischen und systematischen Schulbuchforschung. Bad Heilbrunn, Klinkhardt Verlag, 2010, p. 217-229. Abstract
“Conceptualizing Modernity through Colonial Encounters: Educational Challenges and Experiments in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1934-1956”, World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies(panel “Knowledge, Modernity and the State in the Nile Valley: Egypt and Sudan in the Imperial Era, 1882-1956”), Barcelona, 19-24 July 2010. Abstract
“Between National Unification and Cultural Imperialism: History Teaching and Language Policy in Late Colonial Sudan, 1946-1956”, 29th Annual Conference of the Sudan Studies Association (“Sudan’s Elections and the Referendum: Choices, Last Chances, A Time for Change?”). Purdue University, West Lafayette (Indiana, USA), 28-30 May 2010. Abstract
“ʻTransborder’ Exchanges of People, Things and Representations: Revisiting the Conflict between Mahdist Sudan and Christian Ethiopia, 1885-1889”, International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 43(1), 2010, p. 1-26. Abstract
“Confronting a Christian Neighbor: Sudanese Representations of Ethiopia in the Early Mahdist Period, 1885-89”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 41(2), 2009, p. 247-267. Abstract