Prof. Dr. Aline Schläpfer
Professorin
Aline Schläpfer
Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät
Departement Gesellschaftswissenschaften
Professur Schläpfer

Professorin

Maiengasse 51
4056 Basel
Schweiz

Tel. +41 61 207 12 08
aline.schlaepfer@unibas.ch

SNF Eccellenza professor Near and Middle Eastern Studies

Aline Schläpfer leads a research project hosted at the Near and Middle Eastern Studies and funded by SNF-Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship (2020-2025), entitled "Ottoman afterlife in Jordan and Iraq. Politics of remembering and forgetting in new Arab states (1920-1958)". She was a visiting research student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (2009), and a postdoctoral fellow at the American University of Beirut in 2016 and Princeton University in 2017, with the Swiss National Science Foundation. She was maître-assistante at University of Geneva until 2020. She is the author of Les intellectuels juifs de Bagdad. Discours et allégeances (1908-1951) (Brill 2016), and a number of articles dealing with the history of Jews in Arab lands, nationalism, history of minorities and the study of Ottoman imprint in Arab spaces.

Aline Schläpfer leitet ein Forschungsprojekt, das vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds (SNF-Eccellenza Professoral Fellowship) finanziert wird. Das Projekt mit dem Titel «Ottoman afterlife in Jordan and Iraq. Politics of remembering and forgetting in new Arab states» (2020-2025) befasst sich mit Fragen der Erinnerung, des Erbes und der Kontinuität des Osmanischen Reiches in arabischen Räumen. Aline Schläpfer war Gastdoktorandin an der School of Oriental and African Studies in London (2009) und Postdoktorandin an der American University of Beirut in 2016 und der Princeton University bis 2020. Bevor sie an die Universtität Basel kam, war sie Assistentin und Oberassistentin an der Universität Genf bis 2020. Sie ist Autorin von Les intellectuels juifs de Bagdad. Discours et allégances (1908-1951) (Brill 2016), und einer Reihe von Artikeln, die sich mit der Geschichte der Juden in arabischen Ländern, Nationalismus, der Geschichte von Minoritäten und des Studiums der osmanischen Prägung im arabischen Raum befassen.

  • National and transnational studies in the modern Middle East
  • History and memory
  • Minorities in the Middle East
  • History of Jews in Arab lands
  • Ottoman imprint in Arab spaces
  • Modern and contemporary history of Iraq, Lebanon
  • University of Princeton (2017)
  • American University of Beirut (2015-2017)
  • University of London - School of Oriental and African Studies (2009)
  • University of Haifa (2008)

Fantômes d’Empire. Persistances et revendications d’ottomanité(s) dans les espaces post-ottomans | Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 148  (with Philippe Bourmaud and Iyas Hassan - December 2020)

Voiles, corps et pudeur. Approches historiques et anthropologiques, co-edited with Yasmina Foehr-Janssens and Silvia Naef, Genève, Labor et Fides, 2015

"Sidon Against Beirut. Space, Control and the Limits of Sectarianism within the Jewish Community in Modern Lebanon", International Journal of Middle East Studies 53, 424-448, 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S002074382100018)

"La lettre de suicide du Premier Ministre 'Abd al-Muhsin al-Sa'dun. Vie et mort d'un nationaliste irakien de langue turque" (Fantômes d’Empire. Persistances et revendications d’ottomanité(s) dans les espaces post-ottomans | Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 148, December 2020, pp. 87-110.

"Between Ruler and Rogue. Sayyid Talib al-Naqib and the British in Early 20th Century Basra", in Age of Rogues Rebels, Revolutionaries, and Racketeers in Turn of the Century Eurasia Minor, Ramazan Hakkı Öztan and Alp Yenen (eds.), Edinburgh University Press (forthcoming 2021).

"Defining Minorities: Mission Impossible? The Case of Hashemite Iraq" International Journal of Middle East Studies 50/4, 2018, pp. 769-772 – Roundtable “Minoritization and Pluralism in the Modern Middle East”.

"Entre « communauté » et « minorité » juive. Les défis de la transition en Irak au moment de l’indépendance", in Valérie Assan, Bernard Heyberger and Jakob Vogel (eds.), Minorités en Méditerranée aux XIXe et XXe siècles, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, pp. 217-234.

"Iraqi Students at the American University of Beirut (1920-1958)", Poster, 150th anniversary of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences – American Univ. of Beirut

"Jews of Arab Countries. Between History and Identity Politics”, Current Affairs in Perspective 5, May 2016–Fondation Pierre-Dubois www.fondation-pierredubois.ch

"The King is Dead. Long Live the King! Jewish Funerary Performances in the Iraqi Public Space", in S. Goldstein-Sabbah & H. Murre (eds.), Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East, LUCIS series, Leiden, Brill, 2016, pp. 185-204

“When Antifascism Meets Anti-Colonialism: Modern Jewish Intellectuals in Baghdad”, in Laura Robson (ed.), Minorities of the Modern Middle East. New Perspectives, New York, Syracuse University Press, pp. 93-105

« Paradis artificiels: le jardin du Vieux de la Montagne dans quelques textes médiévaux arabes et français », in collaboration with Marion Uhlig, in Barbu, Daniel, Borgeaud, Philippe, Lozat, Mélanie and Volokhine, Youri (eds.), Monde clos, Cultures et jardins, Lausanne, Infolio, 2013, pp. 177-201. .

"Between Cultural and National Nahda : Jewish Intellectuals in Baghdad and the Nation-Building Process in Iraq (1921-1932)", Journal of Levantine Studies, n° 2, 2011, pp. 59-74

« Le Minaret Suchard : caprice d’un chocolatier orientaliste », in collaboration with Nadia Radwan, in Donatella Bernardi, Noémie Etienne (eds.), Standing on the Beach with a Gun in my Hand, Eternal Tour Jérusalem 2010, Genève, Labor et Fides et Montreuil, Black Jack éditions, 2011, pp. 197-207.

« Bagdad – Jérusalem : Le début ou la fin de l’exil ? Conflits identitaires dans la littérature de Samir Naqqash », in Donatella Bernardi, Noémie Etienne (eds.), Standing on the Beach with a Gun in my Hand, Eternal Tour Jérusalem 2010, Genève, Labor et Fides et Montreuil, Black Jack éditions, 2011, pp. 39-45.

« Huwiyât al-yahûd al-'irâqiyyîn wafqan limudhakkirât yahûd baghdâdiyyîn » (en arabe), traduction de l’anglais vers l’arabe par le Dr. Mahmoud Abdel Wahid Mahmoud, Idafat, revue arabe de sociologie, n° 2, printemps 2008, pp. 175-185.

Istanbul (IFEA)"Un récit des origines nostalgique ou amnésique? Les historiographies irakiennes sur l'histoire ottomane"June 2019
Bagdad (al-Mustansiriya University)"The Ottoman Afterlife. Politics of Remembering and Forgetting in Hashemite Baghdad"April 2019
Sevilla (WOCMES)"Peace Negociator or Rogue? Talib al-Naqib’s Failed Aspirations to Power in Early 20th Century Basra | World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies" July 2018
Princeton University (Department of Near Eastern Studies)“What remains of the Ottomans? Heritage and Memories in Hashemite Iraq”December 2017
Berlin (Conference Jews in Muslim Societies – History and Prospects, Jewish Museum)“Where Did the Waqf Money Go?” Dynamics of Conflicts and Solidarities between the Jewish Communities of Saida and Beirut in the Early Republic of Lebanon”October 2017
Paris (GIS Moyen-Orient et mondes musulmans)"Comment se souvient-on des Ottomans et comment les oublie-t-on? Construction d’une mémoire collective en Irak"July 2017
Boston (MESA)"The Ottoman Legacy in 20th Century Iraq" Contribution to the panel The Ottoman Roots of Modernity in Middle Eastern and Southeast European Cities (Middle East Studies Association)December 2016
University of Edinburgh (Department of Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies)Arab Jews: Concepts, Definitions, Histories” July 2016
Suleimanieh (American University of Iraq & IFPO) “The Jews of Iraq… And What Next?” Conference Conflict and Living Heritage in the Middle East May 2016
Paris (colloque Minorités en Méditerranée au XIXe siècle, Sciences Po)"Notions de communauté (ta’ifa) et de minorité (aqalliyya) chez les juifs du Levant”March 2016
Beirut (IFPO)"La Dhimma. L'islam et les autres religions"November 2014
Radio France internationale"La communauté juive d'Egypte en déclin"July 2014
Suleimanieh (American University of Iraq)"The Jews in Baghdad: The Construction of an Arab-Iraqi Jewishness" April 2014
Leiden (Conference Common ground? Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Middle East)"The King is Dead. Long Live the King! Jews and Their Monarchs in the Iraqi Public Space"September 2013
Portland State University "At the Crossroads of Anti-Colonialism and Anti-Fascism: Modern Jewish Intellectuals in Baghdad", Atelier Minorities of the Modern Middle EastApril 2013
New-Orleans (MESA)"Old and New Allegiances: Baghdadi Jews in Leftist Circles" October 2013
Heidelberg (Hochschule für jüdische Studien)The Revolution of Ignorance: Toward a Critique of Colonialism and Westernization by Jewish Writers in Baghdad"April 2013
Washington DC (MESA) "Through the Eyes of Iraqi Jewish Literati: Perceptions of Baghdad" Contribution to the panel Baghdad 1950s + 50: Memory, Space and Politics (Middle East Studies Association), Washington DCDecember 2011
Barcelone (WOCMES) "Doing Oral History in the Middle East: Israel, Oral Sources, and Non-Belonging"July 2010
London (Annual conference Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, London School of Economics)"Sati' al-Husri and National Charisma, or How to Reconcile the Irreconciliable? European Influences and Intellectual Debates in Iraq"April 2010
Amman (International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies)"Iraqi Jewish Identities: Baghdadi Memoirs"

June 2007