Home to the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, France occupies a key position in the spillover into the West of current conflicts in the Middle East. Professor Alec Hargreaves explores the complex underpinnings of this dynamic in his upcoming talk, “A French Intifada? French Muslims and the Middle East” focused on unresolved tensions in French policy towards immigrant minorities of Arab and Muslim heritage.
Professor Emeritus at Florida State University, Alec G. Hargreaves was Ada Belle Winthrop-King Professor of French and Director of the Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. Formerly Chair of the Department of European Studies at Loughborough University, he also held visiting positions at the University of Warwick, Cornell University, the Université de Lyon II and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. A specialist on political, cultural and media aspects of post-colonial minorities in France, he is the author and editor of numerous books, the most recent of which are Transnational French Studies: Postcolonialism and Littérature-monde (Liverpool, 2011); Politics and Religion in France and the United States (Lexington, 2007); Multi-Ethnic France: Immigration, Politics, Culture and Society (Routledge, 2nd ed. 2007); Memory, Empire, and Postcolonialism: Legacies of French Colonialism (Lexington, 2005); and Memory, Empire and Postcolonialism (Lexington, 2005). He is a member of the Editorial Boards of Expressions maghrébines, Francophone Postcolonial Studies, International Journal of Francophone Studies, Journal of European Studies and Research in African Literatures. In 2003, the French government honored him by naming him a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, and in June 2006 he was awarded France's highest national honor the Légion d'honneur.
Sponsored by French and Italian, Comparative Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, History, International Studies, The Center for Middle East Studies, and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies.
