The Center for European and Russian Studies and Center for Near Eastern Studies invite you to a book talk by Amín Pérez, Associate Professor of Sociology at Université du Québec à Montréal. Perez's publication Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire: Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggle was published March 2024 (Polity). This lecture will take place in Bunche Hall, Room 10383 on May 6, 2025 at 4PM PST. Registration is requested.

About the Talk

Pierre Bourdieu and Abdelmalek Sayad met in their twenties in the midst of the Algerian war of independence. From their first meeting, a strong intellectual friendship was born between the French philosopher and the activist from the colony, nourished by the same desire to understand the world in order to change it. The work of both men was driven by the necessity of putting knowledge to use, whether by unveiling the relations of domination that structured life in Algeria or by opening emancipatory perspectives for the Algerian people. Colonies were, of course, a customary site of ethnographic work, but Bourdieu and Sayad refused to sacrifice scientific rigor to political expediency, even as Algeria descended deeper into war. Indeed, the act of understanding as a political commitment to the transformation of society lay at the heart of their project. Based on extensive interviews and deep archival work, Amín Pérez rediscovers the anticolonial origins of the pathbreaking social thought of these brilliant thinkers. Bourdieu and Sayad, he argues, forged another way of doing politics, laying the foundations of a revolutionary pedagogy, not just for anticolonial liberation but for true social emancipation.

About the Speaker

Amin Perez is Professor of Sociology at University of Quebec in Montreal.

Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, Center for Near Eastern Studies