Theory in the colonial dilemma: Onur Erdur

A Maghreb-based doctrine of spiritual virtue

Onur Erdur's monograph Southern School: The Colonial Roots of French Theory This book addresses a hitherto largely neglected aspect of French intellectual history: the profound biographical and intellectual influences that leading thinkers of the postwar period received from their experiences in the French colonies of North Africa. The book offers a "new, fresh perspective on this theoretical discourse as well as on the political dimensions of theory in general."

The central premise of the book is that theories are inextricably linked to the lived experiences of their originators. Erdur argues that “French theory”—a collective term for diverse approaches such as post-structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism—did not emerge in the vacuum of academic Parisian salons, but was significantly shaped by the “colonial border and difference experiences of its protagonists” in North Africa.

Erdur broadens the traditional view of French theory, which often focuses on Paris and the École Normale Supérieure, by instead foregrounding the beaches of North Africa and the roads of Algiers, Oran, and Tunis as the birthplaces of this thought. He explicitly asks to what extent the biographical experiences (as Pieds-Noirs, conscripts, tourists, and university staff) in North Africa were articulated in the theories of these thinkers. This represents a departure from earlier works that, while problematizing the complex of issues surrounding colonialism and French philosophy, rarely adopted a historical and geographically specific approach. The book offers an exploratory journey into the south of French theory to assess the extent of these influences.

Another concern is to illuminate the moral and intellectual responsibility of intellectuals during the colonial era. Erdur calls this a "doctrine of the mind in the face of colonial injustice." He does not attempt to reduce theories to mere biographies or to assert a mechanical determinism, but rather shows how these experiences were interpreted and incorporated into theoretical projects.

Colonial amnesia?

The relationship between the opening and closing sections is dynamic: The introduction identifies the research gap and the central thesis. The portraits of the thinkers (the main chapters) provide the empirical foundation. Chapter 9 uses this historical grounding to interpret current political misinterpretations. The conclusion connects both by linking the historical relevance of colonial influence with the enduring relevance of the theories and emphasizing the need for their critical development.

The introduction, "In the South of Theory," establishes the central thesis that a "colonial format of thought" shaped French intellectuals and that their personal confrontations with colonial spaces and situations—whether through birth or extended stays—constituted an undeniable biographical reality. It introduces the "colonial dilemma" to which these thinkers faced: how to relate to the injustice of colonialism when simultaneously representing the French state or educational system.

Chapter 9, “Who’s Afraid of Theory?”, serves as a critical examination of the current reception and delegitimization of French theory. Erdur argues that accusations such as “cancel culture,” “wokeness,” and “identity politics” are systematically linked to French theory, often based on “grotesque misreadings, insinuations, and resentments.” He argues that this “theory-bashing” is part of a “political agenda of very often conservative and right-wing movements.” He clarifies that deconstruction here serves as a “cardboard cutout” to combat “ideological excesses” that French theory, at its core, rejects. This chapter is crucial for situating the book not only as a historical study but also as a contribution to the current cultural debate. It utilizes the detailed historical analysis of the preceding chapters to expose the critics’ misconceptions, particularly the claim that French theory is responsible for the dogmatization of identity. Erdur emphasizes that these theories argue against fixed identities.

The concluding essay, "The Strangers," delves deeper into the reflection on the legacy of colonialism and its repression in French society. It summarizes the "key events and awakening moments" in North Africa that shaped ways of thinking. Erdur observes that French intellectuals—with exceptions like Balibar and Cixous—remained silent about the colonial past for decades, reflecting a "collective amnesia" in society. At the same time, he emphasizes that these "colonial experiences were not limited to personal lives or political-moral attitudes, but also manifested themselves in theories and works." The conclusion is a plea for the "continuous work" of these theories in the fight against racism, sexism, and nationalism, and underscores the need to explore the colonial roots of French theory in order to understand the connection between thought, place, and time. The tension between the historical suppression of the topic and the late reflection of the thinkers themselves (mostly in the 1990s) is addressed here.

Coinage in North Africa

Erdur dedicates a separate portrait to each thinker in order to acknowledge the complexity of their individual experiences and how they were processed. The differences between the colonial and postcolonial settings are too great to be contained within a homogenizing narrative.

Pierre Bourdieu (1. An Algerian Bildungsroman)

Bourdieu performed his military service in Algeria (1955-1960), was shocked by the "uprooted Algerian society," and considered his presence there the "original sin of the intellectual from the land of the colonial masters." He stayed voluntarily to "do something useful" and to bear witness. He began sociological and ethnological studies in Algeria, which yielded the "basic features of his famous concept of habitus." He criticized colonial dispossession and the destruction of the Kabyle way of life.

The understanding of the habitus concept is substantially broadened because it stems not primarily from observations of the Parisian educational elite, but from the Algerian experience of the adjustment difficulties faced by uprooted Kabyle farmers. Bourdieu became a "leftist" in Algeria.

Bourdieu benefited from the existence of a scientific framework that would not have existed in this form without colonialism. He dismissed Sartre's and Fanon's views on the Algerian peasantry as "idiotic".

What I find fascinating about Erdur's interpretation is this: Bourdieu's early engagement and systematic observations revealed how deeply he was affected by injustice. The idea that he was able to "accept himself" in Algeria. The "transcultural entanglement" of the habitus concept. The episode of his return to Béarn, his home region, and the application of the ethnological perspective to his own origins, which enabled a "reconciliation with the things and people of his homeland."

Jean-François Lyotard (2. Hopeless Contradiction)

Lyotard was a teacher in Constantine, eastern Algeria, in the early 1950s and was involved with the anti-colonial FLN as a "porter." His experiences there, especially the "hopeless contradiction" between supporting the liberation movement and criticizing its bureaucratic structures, shaped his thinking.

His concept of postmodernism, guided by skepticism towards universal narratives (“the end of grand narratives”), is directly linked to his Algerian experiences and disillusionment with Marxism.

Erdur notes that Lyotard later explained his Algerian ambivalence as an “internal irresolvable conflict”, which can be understood as an attempt at theoretical continuity that obscured the specific political struggles.

What I find fascinating about Erdur's interpretation is Lyotard's "militant activism in clandestine circumstances" as a "porter of information." The idea that one can advocate for a cause while simultaneously criticizing its theoretical or political premises. The analysis of French colonial power as a permanent "conflict" within itself.

Roland Barthes (3rd Moroccan Enlightenment)

Barthes spent time in Morocco (and Tunisia), seeking "places of inspiration and erotic adventures." He experienced an "enlightenment" in Casablanca and fantasized about becoming a novelist. His work Myths of everyday life It contains extensive and critical analyses of colonial myths and the French colonial question.

The book illuminates how present the North African colonies were in French everyday culture in the post-war period and how Barthes addressed this cultural hegemony in his Myths of everyday life deconstructed, for example in the case of "Wine and Milk".

Barthes has been criticized for his “homoerotic Orientalism” and a “bohemian lifestyle in a postcolonial context” in which he “seemed to have little interest.” His private erotic encounters in Morocco (documented in “Incidents”) have been criticized as “neocolonial exploitation, prostitution, sexism, chauvinism, othering, Orientalism.” He enjoyed the “brilliant effects of a civilization” for which he bore no responsibility. A “certain dissonance” remains between his anticolonial critique of the 1950s and his time in Morocco.

What I find fascinating about Erdur's interpretation is Barthes's ability to "make clear the mystification that transforms petit-bourgeois culture into universal nature," particularly with regard to colonialism. His analysis of exoticism as an "ideological tool" to compensate for the loss experienced by empire.

Michel Foucault (4. Enjoy and be silent)

Foucault lived in Sidi Bou Said (Tunisia) from 1966 to 1968, enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle. He sought an "oasis of peace without asceticism." His "Archaeology of Knowledge" was written there, but contains no explicit references to Tunisia. He later claimed to have experienced his political "baptism of fire" in Tunisia, in the face of the student protests.

Erdur portrays Foucault as a "white dandy and unscrupulous hedonist" who had little interest in the colonial situation and whose work has a "glaring omission" on the subject of colonialism.

Foucault's "silence" regarding neocolonial living conditions and French colonial rule is interpreted as a "neocolonial privilege." He profited from the situation, ignoring the power asymmetries. Postcolonial critics like Edward Said saw this as "intellectual patricide."

What I find fascinating about Erdur's interpretation is the contrast between Foucault's strict, ascetic writing style in The Archaeology of Knowledge and his extravagant, sensual life in Tunisia. The debate as to whether his silence could also be interpreted as "conscientious behavior" or an "ethic of restraint" regarding matters that, as a foreigner, were none of his business.

Jacques Derrida (5. Identity Discontents)

Derrida was born in 1930 in El Biar, a suburb of Algiers, as a Jew and, in his youth (under the Vichy regime), had to endure denaturalization, antisemitism, and statelessness. This led to a deep-seated “discomfort with identity” and an “allergic sensitivity to affiliations.”

Erdur argues that these traumatic experiences constitute the "primal scene" of his philosophical thinking on deconstruction and that his philosophy "struggles with all its might against the idea of ​​overly fixed identities." According to Derrida, "everything he did, wrote, and tried to think had a certain affinity for postcolonialism."

For decades, Derrida remained silent about his Algerian origins and the colonial background of his thought. Critics saw his later autobiographical statements as convenient self-promotion.

What I find fascinating about Erdur's interpretation is that Derrida's "deconstruction" becomes a form of "cultural and intellectual decolonization of philosophy." It's the way he used his own dramatic biography to "shatter" categories like origin and identity.

Hélène Cixous (6. Infernal Paradise)

Cixous was born in Oran, Algeria, in 1937 and shared similar traumatic experiences of antisemitism, stigmatization, and displacement with Derrida. She coined the term "Algériance" to express her ambivalent loyalty to Algeria. Her personal history was directly reflected in her "écriture féminine," a "feminine writing against the phallocentric system."

Cixous is seen as a radical role model. She made her Algerian heritage a central theme in her work, thus engaging in an early and explicit confrontation with France's colonial past that set her apart from other intellectuals of her generation.

What I find fascinating about Erdur's interpretation is Cixous's ability to transform the wounds she suffered into "literature and theory," thereby creating something "new and unique." This involves connecting colonial oppression with capitalist exploitation, racism, and sexism. Her ideas on gender identity as "dynamic and plural" are seen as anticipating today's "gender fluidity."

Étienne Balibar (7th Lessons in Anti-Racism)

As a young student in Paris, Balibar became politicized through protests against the Algerian War and experienced police violence during demonstrations. After independence, he went to Algeria as a "Pied-Rouge" to participate in the academic reconstruction. Since the 1970s, he has been an important left-wing voice in the fight against racism, combining political activism with philosophical analysis. He co-authored "Race, Class, Nation" with Wallerstein, a seminal work in racism studies.

Balibar is portrayed as a pioneer of anti-racist theory, whose work illuminates the functioning of racism in conjunction with capitalism and the nation-state. His concept of "racism without races" (or "cultural racism") is particularly relevant.

His belated focus on racism after the decline of Althusserianism. His initial loyalty to a "ossified, Moscow-loyal party".

What I find particularly interesting about Erdur's interpretation is Balibar's analysis of the "inversion effects" of right-wing rhetoric, which turns anti-racist arguments against themselves. His early observations on the resurgence of right-wing populism are also compelling. Furthermore, his analysis of racism is similar to the concept of intersectionality.

Jacques Rancière (8. Disidentify Yourselves!)

Rancière was born in Algiers in 1940 but moved to France as a child. He only began speaking out about the massacre of October 17, 1961, in Paris and France's colonial past in the 1990s. His central concept is "disidentification," the rejection of collective attributions and identities for the purpose of political subjectivation.

His “hesitant remarks on Algeria” are perceived as “disturbing” because they seem to contradict the principles of his own political philosophy. His concept of disidentification is interpreted as an attempt by an Algerian-born thinker to theoretically process a violent crime and reconcile it with his own politicization.

Rancière remained silent about his Algerian heritage for decades. He reduced the Algerian victims of the massacre to abstract, nameless figures, thus doubling their invisibility. He accused them of being “identity warriors” incapable of disidentifying and therefore unable to become political subjects. His categorical rejection of identity politics was criticized as a “difference-blind universalism” that fails to take the concerns of marginalized groups seriously. His assertion that identity politics and postcolonial studies were nonexistent in France was naive or ignorant. He saw “impossible solidarity” between his generation and the Algerians.

What I find compelling about Erdur's interpretation is his critique of identity politics from a "left-wing" perspective, which warns against "overly entrenched identity-political positions." It is his plea for a mode of thinking that focuses on political subjectivation rather than pre-existing identities.

Reception of the book

The book School of the South It was very well received in the media. It was described as a "truly wonderful monograph" and a "superbly crafted book" that offers a "new, fresh perspective" on the theoretical discourse. Johannes Angermuller praised the "rich historical material" and the "profound theoretical knowledge," which led to "a truly intellectually enjoyable read." In 2024, Elisabeth von Thadden called it "the book of the summer" in Die Zeit and emphasized that it tells the story of "a previously unexplored subject" "with astonishing ease and human connection."

Jörg Später (Die Tageszeitung) argues that Erdur succeeds in reconstructing the "profane contexts of origin" of great philosophy, thus allowing one to "read the work with different eyes." He emphasizes that the "philosophical currents of post-structuralism and deconstruction" not only have a post-colonial present but also a colonial past. Später praises how Erdur demonstrates that identifying French theory with "Manichean oppositions" or assuming shared responsibility for "wokeness" and "identity politics" is simplistic and sometimes grotesquely wrong. He appreciates Erdur's "keen sense of proportion and delight in historical accuracy" and emphasizes that "no determinism, no biographical approach guided his pen here."

Sonja Asal (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) confirms Erdur's thesis that "central keywords and works of French theory cannot be understood without the colonial experiences of borders and difference of its protagonists." She highlights Erdur's precise argumentation and historical contextualization and sees the book as "a plea against the blatant prejudice of the alleged historical amnesia of French theory." Asal critically notes, however, whether such a nuanced book can counter the "oversimplifications of intellectual history" in current discourse.

Lukas Franke (DIE ZEIT) confirms that the theories were "inspired by life on the periphery of the disintegrating French colonial empire," where "the fractures and inconsistencies of Europe became immediately visible." He praises Erdur for establishing a vivid connection between biographies, theories, and the historical context without, however, linking the philosophical significance to its origin or context. Franke emphasizes that the book exposes as "nonsense" the attacks of right- and left-wing culture warriors who blame everything on postmodernism.

Stephan Wolting (literaturkritik.deWolting acknowledges Erdur's achievement in "uncovering" the connections between colonialism/decolonialism and the biographical roots of French thinkers. He mentions that despite the focus on identity, Erdur does not make a "hasty" judgment on identity politics or "wokeness concepts." Wolting emphasizes that the "experiences of otherness and borders" in North Africa were "significant and defining" for the protagonists' style of thought.

Onur Erdur discussed his intentions in the "Mittelweg 36" podcast. He emphasizes that "French Theory" as a label is an American invention and functions as a "trademark," while the content of the theories is highly heterogeneous. The commonalities among his protagonists lie in a shared philosophical education at the École Normale Supérieure, a "passionate inclination toward theorizing," and a "critical stance" against identity and for difference, against the center and for the periphery. He affirms that his protagonists "were all witnesses to decolonization," which shaped their lives, political attitudes, and theoretical works. Erdur declines to make moral judgments about the thinkers' differing stances toward colonial violence. His goal was to "highlight the spectrum of attitudes." He speaks of the “colonial dilemma” in which all his protagonists found themselves: how to deal with the obvious injustice of colonialism when one was simultaneously a representative of the French state or education system.

He explains that the “collective silence” and “colonial amnesia” in France after 1962 meant that French universities did not experience a similar development of postcolonial studies as those in Anglo-Saxon countries until well into the 2000s. Erdur criticizes the current oversimplification that blames French theory for “wokeness” and “identity politics,” calling it “a total misinterpretation based on resentment and assumptions” that does not stand up to historical scrutiny. He sees it as a political agenda “very often pursued by conservative and right-wing movements” that are constructing a “cardboard character.”

In conclusion, Erdur summarizes what his protagonists in the School of the South They learned that they experienced key events that made them "strangers" to themselves, their nation, and their language. These "experiences of otherness and boundaries" were "crucial and decisive in shaping their style, their thinking, and their theories."

Conclusion on the book's value

Onur Erdurs School of the South This book makes an important contribution to the intellectual history of French theory by comprehensively and critically illuminating, for the first time, the colonial roots of these schools of thought, which have been partially overlooked. The book's findings can be summarized as follows:

New geographical and biographical contextualization

Erdur locates the origins of key theoretical concepts in the lived experiences of thinkers in North Africa. This corrects the Eurocentric notion that these theories originated exclusively in Parisian think tanks.

Complexity and inconsistency

The book impressively explores the ambivalences, dilemmas, and "hopeless contradictions" that intellectuals faced. It refutes simplistic black-and-white portrayals and offers a nuanced picture of thinkers' relationships to their time and the political upheavals of that era.

Relevance to current events and defense of the theory

Erdur uses historical analysis to expose current politically motivated attacks on French theory as "misreadings." He demonstrates that the thinking of these philosophers argues precisely against fixed identities and in favor of difference, and not, as is often assumed, as the cause of "identity politics" and "wokeness."

Insights gained for postcolonial studies

The book explains why postcolonial studies developed later in France than elsewhere, and at the same time shows how colonial experiences became the basis for later criticism of Eurocentrism and power structures.

Questioning the relationship between life and work

Without resorting to crude biographical analysis, Erdur convincingly demonstrates how "all great philosophies are biographically, historically, and politically charged." He shows that personal experience not only had an influence but often also provided a moral impetus "not to be blind to existing injustice."

Overall is School of the South a knowledgeable, stylistically elegant and intellectually stimulating work that not only opens up new aspects for specialists, but is also accessible to a wider audience.

This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.