On May 14, 2014, the cycle Belonging in the Mediterranean/Belonging to the Mediterranean is organizing a seminar around the book “The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean” by author Jessica Marglin. She holds the Ruth Ziegler Chair in Jewish Studies and is a professor of religion, law, and history at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean
(Tuesday, May 14th at 4:00 PM, meeting room of the Maison Neuve, Iméra. 2, Place Leverrier, 13004, Marseille. For people with reduced mobility, entrance via Avenue Jean-Louis Pons is accessible through Boulevard Cassini).
“The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean” sheds new light on the history of belonging in the 19th century through the trial of the estate of a wealthy Tunisian Jew. The book has won numerous international awards:
- Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award
- History Category Winner of the James Willard Hurst Book Prize
- Law & Society Association Winner of the Mediterranean Seminar Best Book Prize
- Co-Winner – Albert Hourani Book Award
- Middle East Studies Association Winner of the Albert Hourani Book Award
Jessica Marglin specializes in the history of Jews in the modern Maghreb and the Mediterranean, with a focus on legal history. Her first book, “Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco” (Yale University Press, 2016), examines Jews in the Moroccan legal system in the 19th/early 20th centuries. Her second book, “The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean” (Princeton University Press, 2022), tells the story of Nissim Shamama and the complex ramifications of his estate trial. In doing so, the historian advocates for a new approach to the history of belonging on both sides of the Mediterranean
Future sessions of the cycle “Belonging in the Mediterranean/Belonging to the Mediterranean”
Speaker: Dario Miccoli (Ca’Foscari, Venice) Topic: A Sephardi Sea. Jewish Memories across the Mediterranean
Speaker: Nicolas Badalassi (Sciences Po Aix) Topic: France, the Cold War, and the Mediterranean, from the Evian Accords to Perestroika
