Student Movements and Transnational Connections in Tunisia’s 1968

February 12, 2026

Student Movements and Transnational Connections in Tunisia’s 1968

Episode 225

Student Movements and Transnational Connections in Tunisia’s 1968

In this podcast, Burleigh Hendrickson discusses his book, Decolonizing 1968: Transnational Student Activism in Tunis, Paris, and Dakar (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022). The book was awarded the French Colonial Historical Society’s 2023 Alf Andrew Heggoy Prize for best book published in the preceding year dealing with the French colonial experience from 1815 to the present. Decolonizing 1968 focuses on the postcolonial relationships between France and its former colonies during the global protests of 1968. Combining multi-sited archival research with the oral histories of former activists, his research makes visible the enduring links between France and its ex-colonies at the end of formal empire.

Burleigh Hendrickson an Assistant Professor in the department of French & Francophone Studies at Penn State University. A scholar of French Empire and decolonization, his research and teaching apply transnational and comparative approaches to the history of the Francophone world, with emphasis on the Maghreb and West Africa. He is also interested in cultures of protest, knowledge production, and historical claims for human dignity. He is the past recipient of Mellon research and writing fellowships from the Council for European Studies and the Social Science Research Council (IDRF), as well as a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship and the Society for French Historical Studies. More recently, he received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to France to carry out research on his second book project, “Losing Empire: Dignity and Indignation from the Enlightenment to the Arab Spring.”

This episode was recorded on the 9^th of November, 2023, with Luke Scalone, at the Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT).

Télécharger le podcast: Feed / iTunes / Podbean / Spotify

We thank our friend Mohamed Boukhoudmi for his interpretation of the extract of "Nouba Dziriya" by Dr. Noureddine Saoudi for the introduction and conclusion of this podcast.

Production and editing: Lena Krause, AIMS Development and Digital Resources Liaison.

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Bibliographie Suggérée

Abdessamad, Hichem. Notre soixante-huit en Tunisie: Le mythe et le patrimoine. Tunis: Mots Passant, 2019.

Bessis, Sophie. “‘Perspectives’: l’effervescence tunisienne des années 1960.” In 1968: Une histoire collective, edited by Philippe Artières and Michelle Zancarini-Fournel, 120-124. Paris: La Découverte, 2008.

Buqura, Abd al-Jalil. Harakat Afaq min Tarikh al-Yasar al-Tunisi. Tunis: CERES, 1993.

Charfi, Mohamed. Mon combat pour les Lumières. Léchelle, France: Zellige, 2009.

Comité international pour la sauvegarde des droits de l’homme en Tunisie. Liberté pour les condamnés de Tunis: La verité sur la repression. Paris: F. Maspero, 1969.

Dhifallah, Mohamed. “Bourguiba et les étudiants: Stratégie en mutation (1956–1971).” In Habib Bourguiba: La trace et l’héritage, edited by Michel Camau and Vincent Geisser, 313-324. Paris: Éditions Karthala, 2004.

Jebari, Idriss. “‘Illegitimate Children’: The Tunisian New Left and the Student Question, 1963-1975.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 54, no. 1 (2022): 100-123.

Hendrickson, Burleigh. “March 1968: Practicing Transnational Activism from Tunis to Paris.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44, no. 1 (2012): 755-774.

Naccache, Gilbert. Qu’as tu fait de ta jeunesse? Itinéraire d’un opposant au régime de Bourguiba, 1954-1979: Suivi de récits de prison. Paris: Cerf, 2009.

Othmani, Ahmed avec Sophie Bessis. Sortir de la prison: Un combat pour la réforme des systèmes carcéraux dans le monde. Paris: La Découverte, 2002.

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