Dr Arthur Asseraf

My research looks at the metropole and the colony together to develop new historical narratives. I have been particularly concerned with the following question: how do we share information and how does this affect our worldviews? My first book, Electric News in Colonial Algeria, looks at the transformation of news circulation in Algeria under French rule. I show how the intensification of media produced a colonial society that was more divided rather than more connected by drawing on a wide range of forms of news from songs and manuscripts to newspapers and radio, in French, Arabic, Spanish, and other languages. I suggest that this particular colonial society can help us rethink the role of media more widely, and this has led me to broader questions on the nature of news.

I am currently working on two new projects. The first is a microhistory of an Algerian man in the 19th century who carefully manipulated information to generate a huge public scandal in France, West Africa, and Tunisia. The second project takes my research forward in time into the 1960s and 1970s, looking at the relationship between rumour and race in Fifth Republic France.

For undergraduates, I teach the Themes and Sources Option 'Fighting for Algeria, Fighting for France' using French primary sources. I convene Paper 18 (20th century European history) and lecture in 19th century European history (Paper 17) and 20th century World History (Paper 23)

At the MPhil level, I teach an option on 'The Modern Mediterranean' for the Modern European and World History MPhils.

I welcome inquiries from prospective students interested in the history of modern France and the French Empire, especially projects concerned with the history of media and/or colonialism and race.