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62393-01 - Seminar: Alcohol in the North African Colonies: Crime, Sickness and Civilisation (3 CP)
| Semester | fall semester 2021 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Nina Studer Salouâ (nina.studersaloua@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | In this course, the students will critically analyse the differences in colonial descriptions of the consumption of alcoholic drinks among the Jewish and Muslim colonised in North Africa, as well as among the European settlers. In the first part, the long precolonial history of alcohol in the region (beer, wine, palm wine, date and fig liquors, etc.) will be studied alongside the prohibition of alcohol in the Qur’an. In the rest of the seminar, diverse aspects of the colonial discourse on alcohol in North Africa will be analysed, such as: the idea that civilisation could be measured (and, indeed, increased) through the levels of alcohol consumption in a society; the European understanding of the alcohol prohibition in the Qur’an, and the fixation of European authors on how Muslims circumvented this prohibition; the theory of insanity through alcohol consumption; an increase in criminality blamed on alcohol drinking; the notion of alcohol being a “male drink” and the pathologisation and criminalization of alcohol-drinking women resulting from this notion; the introduction of bans on the production, sale and consumption of alcohol in the North African colonies; the idea of alcohol smuggling as a loss for the colonial state, and taxes on imported alcohol. The principle question of this seminar is whether women and men, the colonised and the colonisers, settlers and metropolitans, workers, traders, and the elite, drank the same or different alcoholic drinks, and whether they were defined in these colonial descriptions by what and where they consumed their drinks of choice. |
| Bibliography | Literature will be distributed in the seminar. The following may serve as introductory literature: Barrows, Susanna. Alcohol, France and Algeria: A Case Study in the International Liquor Trade. In: Contemporary Drug Problems. Vol. 11 (1982). 525-543. Foda, Omar D. The Pyramid and the Crown: The Egyptian Beer Industry from 1897 to 1963. In: International Journal of Middle East Studies. Vol. 46 (2014). 139-158. Hubbell, Amy L. (In)Edible Algeria: Transmitting Pied-Noir Nostalgia Through Food. In: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies. Vol. 10, No 2 (July 2013). 1-18. Jansen, Willy. French Bread and Algerian Wine: Conflicting Identities in French Algeria. In: Scholliers, Peter (Hg.). Food, Drink and Identity. Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages. Oxford/New York: Berg Publishers, 2001. 195-218. Martinez, Francisco J. Drinking Dis-Ease: Alcohol and Colonialism in the International City of Tangier, c. 1912-1956. In: Ernst, Waltraud (ed.). Alcohol Flows Across Cultures: Drinking Cultures in Transnational and Comparative Perspective. London/New York: Routledge, 2020. 61-83. Matthee, Rudi. Alcohol in the Islamic Middle East: Ambivalence and Ambiguity. In: Past and Present (2014). 100-125. Studer, Nina. It Is Only Gazouz: Muslims and Champagne in the Colonial Maghreb. In: Asiatische Studien. Vol. 73, No 3 (2020). 399-424. Znaien, Nessim. Boire en Tunisie sous le Protectorat (1881-1956). In: Le Carnet de l’IRMC. No 20 (2017). Available at: https://irmc.hypotheses.org/2168 [07.05.2021 Znaien, Nessim. Les territoires de l’alcool à Tunis et à Casablanca sous la période des Protectorats (1912-1956): Des destins parallèles? In: L’Année du Maghreb. Nr. 12 (2015). 193-206.] Comments: Due to the languages of the sources, an understanding of English and French is necessary for this seminar. |
| Comments | Due to the languages of the sources, an understanding of English and French is necessary for this seminar. Seminar findet 14-tägig statt. Teilnehmerzahl ist begrenzt. Verfügbarkeit je nach Betriebskonzept und Bestuhlung im Herbst 2021. |
| Admission requirements | Für Masterstudierende und fortgeschrittene Bachelorstudierende der Geschichte mit abgeschlossener Grundstufe (Nachweis von drei Proseminaren und den drei obligatorischen Proseminararbeiten). Bei Überbelegung kann die Teilnehmerzahl beschränkt werden. In diesem Fall werden Studierende der Geschichte bevorzugt zugelassen. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14-täglich | Thursday | 14.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 1 |
Dates
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday 23.09.2021 | 14.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 1 |
| Thursday 07.10.2021 | 14.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 1 |
| Thursday 21.10.2021 | 14.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 1 |
| Thursday 11.11.2021 | 14.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 4 |
| Thursday 18.11.2021 | 14.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 1 |
| Thursday 02.12.2021 | 14.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 1 |
| Thursday 16.12.2021 | 14.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 1 |
| Modules |
Modul: Areas: Afrika (Master's degree program: European History in Global Perspective) Modul: Aufbau Neuere / Neueste Geschichte (Bachelor's degree subject: History) Modul: Epochen der europäischen Geschichte: Neuere / Neueste Geschichte (Master's degree program: European History in Global Perspective) Modul: Fields: Governance and Politics (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Fields: Public Health and Social Life (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Neuere / Neueste Geschichte (Master's degree subject: History) Modul: Themen der Nahoststudien (Bachelor's degree subject: Near & Middle Eastern Studies) Modul: Themen der Near & Middle Eastern Studies (Master's degree subject: Near & Middle Eastern Studies) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Departement Geschichte |