Joshua Schreier | Vassar College (original) (raw)

Books by Joshua Schreier

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Papers by Joshua Schreier

The confrontation between the "indigenous" Jews of Algeria and the French colonial administration... more The confrontation between the "indigenous" Jews of Algeria and the French colonial administration has been the central drama in the historiography of Jews in modern Algeria. This encounter was, until recently, narrated in the modernizing language left over from the civilizing mission, whereby the "isolated" and "oppressed" indigenous Jews haltingly came to appreciate and assimilate French culture over the course of the nineteenth century. With the aid of liberal reformers who successfully advocated for the extension of the French system of Consistoires Israélites (official community organizations) to Algeria, so the story goes, the "regeneration" of indigenous Jews was eventually realized through the 1870 Crémieux Decree that made French citizens of thirty thousand indigenous Jews of Algeria's northern cities. It is a tidy and triumphalist story, whose success was seemingly confirmed in 1962 when the vast majority of Algeria's Jews departed for France—despite initial Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) calls for Jews to stay in Algeria, and Zionists' efforts to encourage them to emigrate to Israel.

in Algeria & France, 1800-2000: Identity, Memory, Nostalgia, Patricia Lorcin, ed. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 2006): 101-116.

Book Reviews by Joshua Schreier

Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2010

The ambitious aim of Brower's impressive study of the Sahara under French rule is "measuring and ... more The ambitious aim of Brower's impressive study of the Sahara under French rule is "measuring and explaining the violence of Algeria's colonial past" (5). At the same time, he insists that this violence obeyed a "multiple logic" and was "not a singular phenomenon" (6). Rather than "take aim at existing paradigms" or "establish new ones," the book therefore endeavors to unearth and flesh out multiple perspectives that have been recorded in the colonial archives (9). Likening his approach to the novels of William Faulkner, he organizes his study to tell "one story in four parts, representing four facets of the same problem" (5). The resulting book might be frustrating for those readers who are not convinced by his claim that there is only "one problem" of colonial violence, and seek a unifying question that binds together the rich but disparate stories recounted here. But even these readers will appreciate Brower's sophisticated use of colonial archives and an astounding array of early published studies in his effort to prove that if colonial violence overwhelmingly victimized the colonized over the colonizers, it also "showed many 'fields of 1950: La IVe république et la mise au pas des colonies françaises (Paris: La Décoverte, 1994); Amar Belkhodja, Barbarie coloniale en Afrique (Algiers: Editions ANEP, 2002); Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser, exterminer: sur la guerre et l'état colonial (Paris: Fayard, 2005).

Humanitarianism analyzes a wide spectrum of French documentary films and related media, arguing t... more Humanitarianism analyzes a wide spectrum of French documentary films and related media, arguing that the production and dissemination of healthand technology-related knowledge served to justify the French colonial presence in the name of humanitarian imperatives. Bloom exposes the powerful connections between the production and deployment of medical, geographic, and anthropological knowledge, public health campaigns in both France and the colonies, and visual culture. Bloom uses the term "documentary" as a unit of analysis encompassing short and long films, scientific articles, plans for instruments, photographs, postcards, and promotional posters. Without directly engaging it, the book builds upon previous scholarship that has argued that official and unofficial campaigns effectively diffused colonial consciousness in the French public sphere, especially during the interwar period. The "documentary" that Bloom analyzes here both overlaps with and complements the visual media (such as colonial exhibitions or popular films) that this earlier work has drawn upon. Bloom's bold yet nuanced readings of the cultural import of key events, films, and expositions, his careful contextualization of the forms he analyzes, and the sheer range of his sources provide a model for scholars hoping to interweave colonial and metropolitan cultural history.

e Civ izin g M on in C onia l Al ia e Civ izin g M on in C onia l Al ia

The confrontation between the "indigenous" Jews of Algeria and the French colonial administration... more The confrontation between the "indigenous" Jews of Algeria and the French colonial administration has been the central drama in the historiography of Jews in modern Algeria. This encounter was, until recently, narrated in the modernizing language left over from the civilizing mission, whereby the "isolated" and "oppressed" indigenous Jews haltingly came to appreciate and assimilate French culture over the course of the nineteenth century. With the aid of liberal reformers who successfully advocated for the extension of the French system of Consistoires Israélites (official community organizations) to Algeria, so the story goes, the "regeneration" of indigenous Jews was eventually realized through the 1870 Crémieux Decree that made French citizens of thirty thousand indigenous Jews of Algeria's northern cities. It is a tidy and triumphalist story, whose success was seemingly confirmed in 1962 when the vast majority of Algeria's Jews departed for France—despite initial Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) calls for Jews to stay in Algeria, and Zionists' efforts to encourage them to emigrate to Israel.

in Algeria & France, 1800-2000: Identity, Memory, Nostalgia, Patricia Lorcin, ed. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 2006): 101-116.

Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2010

The ambitious aim of Brower's impressive study of the Sahara under French rule is "measuring and ... more The ambitious aim of Brower's impressive study of the Sahara under French rule is "measuring and explaining the violence of Algeria's colonial past" (5). At the same time, he insists that this violence obeyed a "multiple logic" and was "not a singular phenomenon" (6). Rather than "take aim at existing paradigms" or "establish new ones," the book therefore endeavors to unearth and flesh out multiple perspectives that have been recorded in the colonial archives (9). Likening his approach to the novels of William Faulkner, he organizes his study to tell "one story in four parts, representing four facets of the same problem" (5). The resulting book might be frustrating for those readers who are not convinced by his claim that there is only "one problem" of colonial violence, and seek a unifying question that binds together the rich but disparate stories recounted here. But even these readers will appreciate Brower's sophisticated use of colonial archives and an astounding array of early published studies in his effort to prove that if colonial violence overwhelmingly victimized the colonized over the colonizers, it also "showed many 'fields of 1950: La IVe république et la mise au pas des colonies françaises (Paris: La Décoverte, 1994); Amar Belkhodja, Barbarie coloniale en Afrique (Algiers: Editions ANEP, 2002); Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser, exterminer: sur la guerre et l'état colonial (Paris: Fayard, 2005).

Humanitarianism analyzes a wide spectrum of French documentary films and related media, arguing t... more Humanitarianism analyzes a wide spectrum of French documentary films and related media, arguing that the production and dissemination of healthand technology-related knowledge served to justify the French colonial presence in the name of humanitarian imperatives. Bloom exposes the powerful connections between the production and deployment of medical, geographic, and anthropological knowledge, public health campaigns in both France and the colonies, and visual culture. Bloom uses the term "documentary" as a unit of analysis encompassing short and long films, scientific articles, plans for instruments, photographs, postcards, and promotional posters. Without directly engaging it, the book builds upon previous scholarship that has argued that official and unofficial campaigns effectively diffused colonial consciousness in the French public sphere, especially during the interwar period. The "documentary" that Bloom analyzes here both overlaps with and complements the visual media (such as colonial exhibitions or popular films) that this earlier work has drawn upon. Bloom's bold yet nuanced readings of the cultural import of key events, films, and expositions, his careful contextualization of the forms he analyzes, and the sheer range of his sources provide a model for scholars hoping to interweave colonial and metropolitan cultural history.