Publications
Publications
Books
L’Égypte de Nasser : classes moyennes et idéal socialiste (1952-1970)
Presses universitaires de France
This book, which originates in a doctoral dissertation defended at Sorbonne University in June 2024, reconstructs the conceptual history of the Arabic “middle class” (al-ṭabaqa al-wusṭā / al-ṭabaqa al-mutawassiṭa) in Nasser’s Egypt (1952–1970). Rather than taking the “middle class” as a self-evident…
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La diaspora syriaque-orthodoxe de Jérusalem. Pèlerins, réfugiés et fabrique communautaire à l’époque ottomane et mandataire 1831-1948
Geuthner
This book examines the nature of the Syriac Orthodox diaspora of Jerusalem between 1831 and 1948 through a compiled set of the community’s baptismal registers preserved in the library of the Monastery of Saint Mark in Jerusalem. Focusing on a city that was never a major stronghold of this Church, it…
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Welfare state et développement: circulations globales et politiques locales (années 1950-1970)
Monde(s), 25/1
Co-editors: Paul Mayens
Individual articles published in peer-reviewed journals
Al-Azhar to India (1936-1937). Arab Orientalism and the Formation of National Islams
Annales islamologiques, 61, accepted, awaiting publication
Abstract ↓↑
In 1936, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar university in Cairo sent a mission to India, ostensibly tasked with studying the condition of the Dalits, those considered untouchable in the Hindu caste system. Instead, for one hundred days, this political and religious mission travelled around the country studying the situation of India’s Muslims. An examination of the mission’s report, and of the weekly accounts of the mission published in the Egyptian press, reveals that the situation of Indian situation provided a model for the staff of Al-Azhar, and for Egyptian intellectuals generally, who were seeking possible solutions to Egypt’s educational and economic issues. This entailed the formulation of a new Orientalist discourse by an Egypt whose cultural and political identity was changing during this period – a discourse that this article examines.
La controverse des 'nouvelles classes' arabes par l'exemple égyptien
Le Mouvement social, 296/3-4, accepted, awaiting publication
Abstract ↓↑
This article examines the problematic notion of the “new class” as employed in Western political science in the second half of the twentieth century. It indeed has created a gap between the discourse of outside observers and the analyses of Egyptian experts on the socio-economic development of Arab countries. Through the Egyptian example which was pictured as a paradigm, this article will present the Western debate on these socio-economic strata, followed by an examination of the reception of this terminological controversy in Egypt, concurrence by another theory on social stratification which was used as a means of describing the stage of national development.
Beyond post-colonialism: Egyptian Statistics in the Golden Age of Development
Égypte Soudan mondes arabes, 28, accepted, awaiting publication
Abstract ↓↑
This article questions the notion of “postcolonial state” in Egypt through the history of its statistical institutions, under Gamal Abdel Nasser’s power. It shows that the Nasserite regime benefited both from a long-standing trend towards social reform and national population measurement, initiated by the reformist elites under the monarchy, and from an international context favourable to development. The history of Nasserite statistics ultimately reveals the subtle balance in Egyptian development discourse between a universal statistical language and a specific national destiny, a complexity that is poorly captured by the facile label of “postcolonial” development.
Surveying Cairo: The Machinery of Social Reform in the Nasser-Era Administration
The Proceedings of the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences, awaiting publication, available online
Abstract ↓↑
This article considers a series of social surveys conducted in Cairo by the Egyptian Association for Social Studies, in the years between 1956 and 1968. This was the period when planning was the leitmotiv of the Nasserite regime and its efforts to build a cooperative socialism. Against the backdrop of the febrile situation these surveys describe in Cairo’s social services and associations, and the wider and rapidly changing political situation in Egypt, these surveys, scarcely known even among specialists, reveal a constantly evolving condition of contestation between social reform actors and the administrative services of Nasser’s state.
Les socialistes égyptiens face aux réformes de la famille : enjeux de développement social et économique
Annales de démographie historique, 147/1, 55–84
'Youth' in Nasser's Time: a class identity
ZMO Working Papers, 38
S'engager à l'époque du non-alignement : l'exemple de la revue égyptienne Al-Kātib
Les Cahiers Sirice, 27/2, 79–88
Collective articles published in peer-reviewed journals
"Where are the Landless Peasants in Egyptian Fiction? Rural Inequalities of Mid-Twentieth Century Egypt through Five Literary Works"
Égypte Soudan mondes arabes, 27, accepted, under peer-review
Co-authors: Amr Khairy
Fellahs in 1930s-1950s Egypt: al-Arḍ by al-Sharqāwī
Review of Agrarian Studies, Agrarian Novels Series
Co-authors: Amr Khairy
Translations
- الفلاحون المصريون في ثلاثينيات وأربعينيات القرن العشرين: قراءة تاريخية في رواية الأرض — Translated in Arabic by Siyada Network
Introduction. Welfare state et développement: circulations globales et politiques locales (années 1950-1970)
Monde(s), 25/1, 7–25
Co-authors: Paul Mayens
Silence, Secrecy, Ignorance, and the Making of Class and Status across Generations
ZMO Programmatic Texts, 15
Co-authors: Johannes Becker, Katrin Bromber, Sana Chavoshian, Ahmad Moradi, Aksana Ismailbekova, Jasmin Mahazi, Tabea Scharrer, Samuli Schielke
Chapters in Edited Volumes
Egyptian Welfare under Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser (1952-1970): a Development Project in the Third World between State-control and Internationalization
Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo, Sarah Stockwell & Joseph Hodge (ed.), Yearbook for the History of Global Development, De Gruyter, Berlin: De Gruyter, 407-430
Co-authors: Paul Mayens
Usages historiens de la presse intellectuelle en contexte autoritaire – le cas nassérien
Erwan Le Gall & Alain Collas (eds) (ed.), La presse comme source. Retours d’expériences et mode d’emploi, Châteauroux, Codex, 75–83
Articles in Encyclopaedia
Reviews
Review of: Šabasevičiūtė, Giedrė, Sayyid Qutb, An Intellectual Biography (2021)
Mélanges de l’Institut dominicain d’études orientales, 38, 364–369
Review of: Battistini Matteo, Middle Class: An Intellectual History Through Social Sciences: an American Fetish from Its Origins to Globalization (2022)
Le Mouvement Social, 283/3
Review of: Workshop, Dynamiques économiques de la société marocaine. Travail, classes sociales et politiques publiques
20 & 21. Revue d’histoire, 55/3, 191–201
Co-authors: Blaise Truong-Loï
Dissemination
Ethnography of a Friendly Country: an Egyptian Feminist’s Travelogue at the Dawn of the Cold War
Crafte 8
أسئلة صعبة| (حلقة 9) إيه حصل للطبقة الوسطى من زمن الأفندية لحياة الكومباوند؟مع أنطوانيت فيران
al-Manassa, Muhammad Gad, in Arabic
Language: Arabic
"Les Syriaques de Jérusalem”
Radio programme “Chrétiens d’Orient", France Culture, Sébastien de Courtois
The Syriac Orthodox Diaspora in Jerusalem (1831-1948): Pilgrims, Refugees and Community Building in Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine
Open Jerusalem