University of Potsdam, Department of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies
Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg (ZJS)

Leitung: Christoph Hopp

READING AND RESEARCH GROUP

Muslim, Jewish and Christian Thinkers in 19^th- and 20^th-Century North Africa

Philosophy as it is taught today remains largely framed by the Western divide between continental and Anglo-American traditions, while overlooking and even marginalizing a central reality: the dynamic expansion, reception, and re-elaboration of philosophical thought beyond the bounds of Christian Western learning centers. This expansion unfolds geographically—through the appearance or reappearance of philosophical work in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—as well as religiously, linguistically, and culturally, with the development of new approaches (Jewish, Islamic, African, Buddhist, and Hindu philosophies) and new disciplines studying the Jewish, Islamic, African, Buddhist, and Hindu cultural heritages (including philosophy) in both established and emerging academic epicenters.

In this broader expansion of philosophy beyond Christian Western borders, North Africa presents a particularly compelling case. The region was home to important philosophical centers in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, especially in Egypt and the Maghreb. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, philosophical activity re-emerged in the context of Muslim reform movements seeking to transform society, economy, and political structures (Mehmet Ali, Khayr Al-Din), and under the growing European colonial presence. Both reform and colonial projects were shaped by modern Christian philosophical conceptions of the market economy, scientific knowledge, technology, religious reform, and the modern state apparatus. In this great turmoil of Muslim reforms and Christian colonization, Jews played an important role, moving between the traditional status of a protected minority and, in the colonial context, the status of a newly emancipated minority (notably in Algeria, after the 1870 Cremieux Decree).

These historical shifts transformed philosophical discourse across Christian, Muslim, and Jewish contexts, producing remarkable intellectual moments: 19^th-century Muslim and colonial modernization projects; the articulation of the Liberal–Islamist divide in the early 20^th century; the anticolonial nationalism of the 1940s–1960s; Christian, Jewish, and Muslim reflections on the Algerian War and colonialism; postcolonial debates over the failures of national liberation; and the philosophical responses to migration to Europe and Israel. The resulting body of thought constitutes a distinctive philosophical tradition, with prominent figures such as Taha Hussein,  Abdel Rahman Badawi, Abdallah Laroui, Mohammed Abed al-Jabri, Mohamed Arkoun, Hasan Hanafi, Jacques Derrida, Albert Memmi, Hélène Cixous, Edmond Jabès, Louis Massignon, Albert Camus, and others—a tradition that has never been studied comprehensively.

In times of resurgent nationalism and inter-religious tensions and wars, studying the transnational, transcultural, and interreligious creativity of philosophy in 19^th- and early 20^th-century North Africa offers an alternative vision of the region—one that challenges its present-day image as intellectually stagnant. Far from being a philosophical periphery, North Africa was a vibrant intellectual sphere in conversation with European and American thought. As a contact zone between East and West, between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, it was both the object of European Orientalism and colonialism and a site of intellectual agency, where the assumptions of European philosophy were questioned and reconfigured. 

This project has three principal objectives:

• Recovering and reevaluating the North African philosophical tradition
• Creating a transnational research network that brings together scholars from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and America
• Establishing a counter-narrative to the dominant Western conception of modern philosophy

The research and reading group will meet regularly online and convene annual conferences to advance the study of the neglected philosophical heritage of North Africa. Our group will also enhance the publication of research (articles and monographs) presented at the group’s meetings.

The group collaborates with the following institutions and projects: Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg; Institut für Jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam; LOEWE Research Center “Dynamiken des Religiösen: Ambivalente Nachbarschaften zwischen Judentum, Christentum und Islam in historischen und gegenwärtigen Konstellationen”; Forum on Jewish-Muslim Thought and Theology; Research project “Repenser la politique moderne à travers les sources juives et islamiques”; Institut für Judaistik, Freie Universität Berlin.

 

If you are interested in participating in the group, please contact:

Christoph Hopp

christoph.hopp@uni-potsdam.de