Senior Lecturer

Tel: 0113 343 3489
Fax: 0113 343 3477
Email: j.r.house@leeds.ac.uk

Biography

Jim House is Senior Lecturer in French and Co-director of the Institute of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, University of Leeds. 

Research Interests

His research centres on the following areas:

• history and memories of the Algerian War of Independence;
• history of Algerian migrations since 1919;
• colonial governance in Algeria and France;       
• history of shanty-towns (France, Algeria, Morocco);
• history of antiracism in France from the 1930s to the present day;
• history of colonial racism in France.

With co-author Neil MacMaster (UEA, Norwich) he has published Paris 1961: Algerians, State Terror, and Memory (Oxford University Press, 2006).

See the book synopsis and chapter headings at: www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-924725-0

Based on extensive archive and interview material, Paris 1961 examines: the long-term causes of colonial violence against Algerians in Paris during the War of Independence; the events of 1961 leading to the repression of the 17 October 1961 demonstrations; the social memories of such violence up to the present day. The book situates the violence within a longer chronology of colonial repression in Morocco and Algeria, as well as examining the memories of October 1961 as part of the broader memorial landscape of the Algerian War of Independence in France and Algeria. See Philippe Bernard’s review of Paris 1961 in Le Monde des livres of 13 October 2006, p.2.

This book will be published in French translation by Tallandier in February 2008.     

Jim is now starting work on the history of shanty-towns (bidonvilles) in France, Algeria and Morocco, 1930-1975.

This study will study shanty-towns as sites for the focus of colonial and post-colonial power relations and the social, economic and cultural disruptions caused by the colonial encounter. The comparative dimension between Algeria, Morocco and France is designed to enable a study of the circulation of ideas, personnel and methods between colony and metropolis. The timeframe focuses on the slow transition to the post-colonial. A further comparative dimension looks at post-colonial governance towards Algerian shanty-town dwellers in relation to Portuguese and other European migrants.

Jim actively welcomes expressions of interest from prospective research students on any of the research interests detailed above. Recent and on-going research co-supervisions:

• women sans-papiers in France;
• social memories of the Algerian War and the Occupation;
• history of the French far right;
• anti-advertising protest in France;
• cinema and immigration;
• comparative histories of French opposition to the colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria.

Selection of recent and forthcoming publications:

Monograph
Jim House and Neil MacMaster (2006) Paris 1961: Algerians, State Terror and Memory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 375pp.

Edited work
Co-editor, with Joanna Drugan and Sarah Waters, ‘New Voices? Social movements in France’, special edition of Modern and Contemporary France, Vol.12, No.1, February 2004.   

Articles and chapters

Forthcoming

• With Neil MacMaster, ‘Time to Move On. A Reply to Jean-Paul Brunet’, The Historical Journal, Vol.51, No.1, March 2008.
• ‘Leaving silence behind? Algerians and the memories of colonial violence’, chapter in Nanci Adler and Selma Leydesdorf (eds.), Memory and Narrating Mass Violence, Transaction Publishers (USA), 2008.
• ‘De la métropole comme espace de réflexion sur les liens entre colonisation, immigration et racisme (1945-1962)’, in actes du colloque Histoire et immigration, la question coloniale, Paris, BNF, September 2006, to be published by La Documentation française, 2008.    

Published

• ‘Pour une histoire des solidarités franco-algériennes, 1945-1981’, Plein droit, décembre 2007, no.75, pp.35-39.
• With Neil MacMaster, ‘Bilan du 17 octobre 1961’, colloque Pour une histoire critique et citoyenne. Le cas de l’histoire franco-algérienne, 20-22 June 2006, Lyon, ENS – published online November 2007: http://ens-web3.ens-lsh.fr/colloques/france-algerie/communication.php3?id_article=243 
• ‘La répression du 17 octobre 1961 à Paris’, in Actes du 2ème colloque international sur la Révolution algérienne, L’Evénement dans l’histoire récente de l’Algérie (1945-1962), l’Université 20 août 1955-Skikda, Constantine: Bahaeddine Edition-diffusion, 2007, pp.21-41.
• 'Ecrire l’histoire du 17 octobre 1961’, Raison présente, no.157, décembre 2006, pp. 127-138.
• ‘The Colonial and Post-colonial dimensions of Algerian migration to France’, History in Focus, No.11, Autumn 2006. Available on-line at: www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Migrations/articles/house.html
• ‘Colonial racisms in the métropole: reading Peau noire, masques blancs in context’, in Max Silverman (ed) ‘Frantz Fanon’s ‘Black skin, white masks’’, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005, pp.46-73.
• With Neil MacMaster: ‘La Fédération de France du FLN et l’organisation de la manifestation du 17 octobre 1961’, Vingtième siècle. Revue d’Histoire, No.83, juillet-septembre 2004, pp.145-160. See the review of this article by Philippe Bernard in Le Monde, 18 October 2004 (p.7 of supplement ‘France, Algérie. Mémoires en marche’). 
• ‘Répression, surveillance, contrôle et encadrement des migrations coloniales : une décolonisation difficile (1956-1970)’, Bulletin de l’Institut d’histoire du temps présent, No.83, premier semestre 2004, pp.144-156. Available on-line at: www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/dossier_monde_colonial/sommaire.html
• ‘Francophone Postcolonial studies and New Historiographies of the Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters’, Francophone Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 1, No.2, Autumn-Winter 2003, pp.72-78.
• With Neil MacMaster: ‘Une journée portée disparue: the Paris massacre of 1961 and memory’ in  Martin S. Alexander and Ken Mouré (eds.) Crisis and Renewal in Twentieth Century France, Oxford/Providence, RI: Berghahn Press, 2002, pp.267-290.
• ‘Antiracism in France, 1898-1962: Modernity and beyond’ in Floya Anthias and Cathie Lloyd   (eds.) Re-thinking antiracisms. From Theory to Practice, London/ NewYork: Routledge, 2002, pp.111-127.
• ‘Antiracist memories: the case of 17 October 1961 in historical perspective’, Modern and Contemporary France, Vol.9, Part 3, August 2001, pp.355-368.