Associate Professor

Associate Professor Saliha Belmessous

Licence, Université Lyon III-Jean Moulin; MA Université Lyon III and Université de Montréal; Ph.D. Histoire et Civilisations, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris).

Arts,Design & Architecture

School of Humanities & Languages

I research and teach the global history of empires. I am interested in the political and legal history of colonisation; the imperial experiences of colonised peoples; and the dynamics of cross-cultural encounters -- these are all issues that have an impact upon contemporary problems. My current research reassesses the legal and political worlds in which European and non-European societies interacted and challenges recent evaluations of the history of international law. I am examining, more particularly, the ways in which diplomatic negotiations between European and non-European polities were a matrix for a hybrid law of nations.

I will be Visiting Professor at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge in Lent 2023.

Phone

9385 2362

E-mail

s.belmessous@unsw.edu.au

Location

333 Morven Brown

Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, 2015-2022. Topic: The engagement of colonised peoples with empire (Algeria, 1830-1962)
Future Fellowship, Australian Research Council, 2011-2015. Topic: Indigenous land claims in historical context
Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2006-2008. Topic: Assimilation and Empire

British Academy Global Professorship, University of Oxford, 2023-2027
Visiting Professorship, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, Lent 2023
Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, 2015-2019
2014 UNSW Dean's Award for Best Monograph for Assimilation and Empire: Uniformity in French and British Colonies, 1541-1954 (Oxford University Press)
Visiting Professorship, Université Paris 8, April 2014
2013 New South Wales Premier's General History Prize for Assimilation and Empire: Uniformity in French and British Colonies, 1541-1954 (Oxford University Press)
Future Fellowship, Australian Research Council, 2011-2015
National and State Libraries Australasian Honorary Fellowship, 2011
US Studies Centre Research Grant, 2010
University of Sydney Bridging Fellowship, 2009
Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2006-2008
Georges Lurcy Fellowship, 1995
Lavoisier Program of Excellence Fellowship, 1994
Fulbright Fellowship, 1994

Open access publications

'What is a colonial treaty? Questioning the visible and the invisible in European and non-European legal negotiations', Comparative Legal History, 2022, https://www.tandfonline.com/share/6QKSKYQWIQNT7IXUAEAA?target=10.1080/2049677X.2022.2131525

‘Politics and Gender Bias in the Production of Historical Knowledge: Reassessing Muslim Loyalism during the Algerian War of Independence’, Hespéris-Tamuda, 2021.

‘Commemorating French Colonialism in Australia: On the Lapérouse Monument in Sydney’, History Australia, 2020.

'Emancipation within Empire: An Algerian Alternative during the Decolonisation Era’, History Workshop Journal, 2019.

'Greatness and Decadence in French America', Renaissance Studies, 2012.

‘Assimilation and Racialism in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century French Colonial Policy’, The American Historical Review, 2005.

‘Être français en Nouvelle-France: Identité française et identité coloniale aux dix- septième et dix-huitième siècles’ (trans. Being French in New France: French Identity and Colonial Identity in the 17^th and 18^th century), French Historical Studies, 2004.