Benjamin Claude Brower
Biographic Data
| ID | 336848 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin Claude Brower |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin Claude |
| FAMILY NAME | Brower |
| SIGNATURE | BROWER B C |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 38 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
French Colonialism: From the Ancien Régime to the Present
An Isthmus of Modern Thought: Islam and Psychoanalysis in North Africa and the Middle East
On three occasions the Qur'an mentions what it calls barzakh , an enigmatic word that denotes a partition such as that found between fresh and sea water, good and evil, faith and knowledge, even this world and the next. Nimble thinkers have made good use of the in-betweenness of barzakh . Its divisions make possible distinctions and provide form. And yet, just as it divides, the barzakh also connects. In fact, the word is often rendered in Englis…
Regroupment Camps and Shantytowns in Late-Colonial Algeria
This paper examines how the French state responded to the crisis of sovereignty it faced in late-colonial Algeria by confining Algerian civilians in regroupment camps, as well as by the way that it approached people living in the shantytowns of Algiers. It concludes that although different modalities of power distinguished the regroupment camps from the shantytowns, that both sought to neutralize the political agency of Algerians
Chiffoleau Sylvia, Le Voyage À La Mecque. Un Pèlerinage Mondial en Terre D'islam, Paris, Belin, 2015, 364 P
Chiffoleau’s work represents the most important French-language book published to date among a resurgence of international interest in the pilgrimage to Mecca. This interest is manifest both in the public sphere with special museum exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East, as well as in the work of scholars. Young historians of European empires writing in English such as Eileen Kane (Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Cornell Univ…
Partisans and Populations: The Place of Civilians in War, Algeria (1954–62)
Carl Schmitt's influential text The Theory of the Partisan (1963) serves in this article to read the history of civilians in modern warfare, examining the case of Algeria (1954–62). Schmitt's argument that the partisan leads to a dangerous conceptual blurring in war, confusing soldier and civilian, friend and enemy, reveals important questions about the war, questions that are otherwise invisible in conventional readings of the archives. Notably …
The Hajj by Land
Overland travel was and remains at the heart of every Hajj. Even the denizens of Mecca must get to ʿArafat for the vigil ( wuqūf ), a short journey outside of the holy city made by crossing over solid ground. Movement on land comprises the many rites of Hajj such as the circumambulation ( ṭawāf ) of the Kaʿba, the pilgrims’ dispersal after the ʿArafat vigil ( ifāḍa ) and the back and forth traverse ( saʿy ) between al-Ṣafa and al-Marwa, two hillo…
Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an age of migration, c. 1800–1900
In The Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun famously wrote that ‘nobility originates in the state of being outside'. Clancy-Smith's ambitious study can be said to take up Ibn Khaldun's attention to the outsider
Judith SCHEELE. Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century
Just War and Jihad in the French Conquest of Algeria
This chapter examines claims of just war and jihad during the first decades of France’s colonial expansion in Algeria. These include the discourses that announced the arrival of France’s army in the summer of 1830 and subsequent French justifications for quelling the Algerian resistance. On the Algerian side, an openly defiant subaltern discourse developed, deploying Enlightenment ideals to challenge France’s claims of moral superiority and moder…
The Amîr ʿAbd Al-Qâdir and the “Good War” in Algeria, 1832-1847
Human Smoke, his recent book on the events leading up to the Second World War, with a question. "Was it a 'good war'?" he asks bluntly.1 The preceding pages, a montagelike construction of quotations and historical anecdotes that deflate some commonly held understandings of the war, ensure that the reader already knows that Baker's answer is no. He argues that the Second World War's years of apocalypse and holocaust brought nothing that can be leg…
"Rethinking Abolition in Algeria. Slavery and the "Indigenous Question
Like in sub-saharan Africa, Algerian slavery died a "slow death". It did not end with French abolition in 1848 but maintained its importance in some regions through the nineteenth century. Partially shaped by the colonial administration’s pragmatism, the history of abolition in Algeria is similar to other parts of colonial Africa. At the same time, there are differences stemming from the special case of Algerian colonization. In particular, colon…
Frantz Fanon: A Portrait (review)
Reviewed by: Frantz Fanon: A Portrait Benjamin Claude Brower Frantz Fanon: A Portrait. By Alice Cherki, translated by Nadia Benabid. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. This translation of Alice Cherki's 2000 French publication comes at a time of renewed interest in Franz Fanon. Richard Philcox’s much improved new translation of Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 2004) testifies to this attention among Anglophone schola…
A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902
Preface Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration of Arabic Introduction: Understanding Violence in Colonial Algeria Part 1: The Penetration Pacifique of the Algerian Sahara, 1844-52 1: The Peaceful Expansion of Total Conquest 2: Theorizing the Penetration Pacifique 3: The Penetration Pacifique in Practice, 1847-52 Part 2: Exterminating the French at Djelfa, 1861 4: The Ouled Nail and Colonial Rule 5: The Leadership Crisis and Rural Marabouts 6: A …
Grégor Mathias, Les sections administratives spécialisées en Algérie: Entre idéal et réalité (1955-1962), Paris, L'Harmattan, 1998
partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France.Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit
A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902
Preface Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration of Arabic Introduction: Understanding Violence in Colonial Algeria Part 1: The Penetration Pacifique of the Algerian Sahara, 1844-52 1: The Peaceful Expansion of Total Conquest 2: Theorizing the Penetration Pacifique 3: The Penetration Pacifique in Practice, 1847-52 Part 2: Exterminating the French at Djelfa, 1861 4: The Ouled Nail and Colonial Rule 5: The Leadership Crisis and Rural Marabouts 6: A …
"Rethinking Abolition in Algeria. Slavery and the "Indigenous Question
Like in sub-saharan Africa, Algerian slavery died a "slow death". It did not end with French abolition in 1848 but maintained its importance in some regions through the nineteenth century. Partially shaped by the colonial administration’s pragmatism, the history of abolition in Algeria is similar to other parts of colonial Africa. At the same time, there are differences stemming from the special case of Algerian colonization. In particular, colon…
The Amîr ʿAbd Al-Qâdir and the “Good War” in Algeria, 1832-1847
Human Smoke, his recent book on the events leading up to the Second World War, with a question. "Was it a 'good war'?" he asks bluntly.1 The preceding pages, a montagelike construction of quotations and historical anecdotes that deflate some commonly held understandings of the war, ensure that the reader already knows that Baker's answer is no. He argues that the Second World War's years of apocalypse and holocaust brought nothing that can be leg…
Partisans and Populations: The Place of Civilians in War, Algeria (1954–62)
Carl Schmitt's influential text The Theory of the Partisan (1963) serves in this article to read the history of civilians in modern warfare, examining the case of Algeria (1954–62). Schmitt's argument that the partisan leads to a dangerous conceptual blurring in war, confusing soldier and civilian, friend and enemy, reveals important questions about the war, questions that are otherwise invisible in conventional readings of the archives. Notably …
Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an age of migration, c. 1800–1900
In The Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun famously wrote that ‘nobility originates in the state of being outside'. Clancy-Smith's ambitious study can be said to take up Ibn Khaldun's attention to the outsider
Grégor Mathias, Les sections administratives spécialisées en Algérie: Entre idéal et réalité (1955-1962), Paris, L'Harmattan, 1998
partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France.Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit
Grégor Mathias, Les sections administratives spécialisées en Algérie: Entre idéal et réalité (1955-1962), Paris, L'Harmattan, 1998
partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France.Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit
A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902
Preface Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration of Arabic Introduction: Understanding Violence in Colonial Algeria Part 1: The Penetration Pacifique of the Algerian Sahara, 1844-52 1: The Peaceful Expansion of Total Conquest 2: Theorizing the Penetration Pacifique 3: The Penetration Pacifique in Practice, 1847-52 Part 2: Exterminating the French at Djelfa, 1861 4: The Ouled Nail and Colonial Rule 5: The Leadership Crisis and Rural Marabouts 6: A …
Frantz Fanon: A Portrait (review)
Reviewed by: Frantz Fanon: A Portrait Benjamin Claude Brower Frantz Fanon: A Portrait. By Alice Cherki, translated by Nadia Benabid. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. This translation of Alice Cherki's 2000 French publication comes at a time of renewed interest in Franz Fanon. Richard Philcox’s much improved new translation of Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 2004) testifies to this attention among Anglophone schola…
"Rethinking Abolition in Algeria. Slavery and the "Indigenous Question
Like in sub-saharan Africa, Algerian slavery died a "slow death". It did not end with French abolition in 1848 but maintained its importance in some regions through the nineteenth century. Partially shaped by the colonial administration’s pragmatism, the history of abolition in Algeria is similar to other parts of colonial Africa. At the same time, there are differences stemming from the special case of Algerian colonization. In particular, colon…
The Amîr ʿAbd Al-Qâdir and the “Good War” in Algeria, 1832-1847
Human Smoke, his recent book on the events leading up to the Second World War, with a question. "Was it a 'good war'?" he asks bluntly.1 The preceding pages, a montagelike construction of quotations and historical anecdotes that deflate some commonly held understandings of the war, ensure that the reader already knows that Baker's answer is no. He argues that the Second World War's years of apocalypse and holocaust brought nothing that can be leg…
Just War and Jihad in the French Conquest of Algeria
This chapter examines claims of just war and jihad during the first decades of France’s colonial expansion in Algeria. These include the discourses that announced the arrival of France’s army in the summer of 1830 and subsequent French justifications for quelling the Algerian resistance. On the Algerian side, an openly defiant subaltern discourse developed, deploying Enlightenment ideals to challenge France’s claims of moral superiority and moder…
Judith SCHEELE. Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century
Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an age of migration, c. 1800–1900
In The Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun famously wrote that ‘nobility originates in the state of being outside'. Clancy-Smith's ambitious study can be said to take up Ibn Khaldun's attention to the outsider
The Hajj by Land
Overland travel was and remains at the heart of every Hajj. Even the denizens of Mecca must get to ʿArafat for the vigil ( wuqūf ), a short journey outside of the holy city made by crossing over solid ground. Movement on land comprises the many rites of Hajj such as the circumambulation ( ṭawāf ) of the Kaʿba, the pilgrims’ dispersal after the ʿArafat vigil ( ifāḍa ) and the back and forth traverse ( saʿy ) between al-Ṣafa and al-Marwa, two hillo…
Partisans and Populations: The Place of Civilians in War, Algeria (1954–62)
Carl Schmitt's influential text The Theory of the Partisan (1963) serves in this article to read the history of civilians in modern warfare, examining the case of Algeria (1954–62). Schmitt's argument that the partisan leads to a dangerous conceptual blurring in war, confusing soldier and civilian, friend and enemy, reveals important questions about the war, questions that are otherwise invisible in conventional readings of the archives. Notably …
Chiffoleau Sylvia, Le Voyage À La Mecque. Un Pèlerinage Mondial en Terre D'islam, Paris, Belin, 2015, 364 P
Chiffoleau’s work represents the most important French-language book published to date among a resurgence of international interest in the pilgrimage to Mecca. This interest is manifest both in the public sphere with special museum exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East, as well as in the work of scholars. Young historians of European empires writing in English such as Eileen Kane (Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Cornell Univ…
Regroupment Camps and Shantytowns in Late-Colonial Algeria
This paper examines how the French state responded to the crisis of sovereignty it faced in late-colonial Algeria by confining Algerian civilians in regroupment camps, as well as by the way that it approached people living in the shantytowns of Algiers. It concludes that although different modalities of power distinguished the regroupment camps from the shantytowns, that both sought to neutralize the political agency of Algerians
An Isthmus of Modern Thought: Islam and Psychoanalysis in North Africa and the Middle East
On three occasions the Qur'an mentions what it calls barzakh , an enigmatic word that denotes a partition such as that found between fresh and sea water, good and evil, faith and knowledge, even this world and the next. Nimble thinkers have made good use of the in-betweenness of barzakh . Its divisions make possible distinctions and provide form. And yet, just as it divides, the barzakh also connects. In fact, the word is often rendered in Englis…
French Colonialism: From the Ancien Régime to the Present
History (12 works) · Ancient history (8 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · Art (6 works) · Colonialism (6 works) · History (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Geography (5 works) · Law (5 works) · African history and culture studies (4 works)