Jessica Marglin, Jewish Citizenship on Trial: Litigating Belonging between Tunisia and Italy

When and Where

Monday, January 20, 2025 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Room 100
Jackman Humanities Building
170 St. George Street

Speakers

Jessica Marglin (University of South California, Dornsife)

Description

Granovsky-Gluskin Lecture in Jewish Studies

Jessica Marglin (University of South California, Dornsife)

Jewish Citizenship on Trial: Litigating Belonging between Tunisia and Italy

In the winter of 1873, Nissim Shamama, a wealthy Jew from Tunisia, died suddenly in his palazzo in Livorno, Italy. Nissim’s death initiated a fierce lawsuit over his large estate. Before Nissim’s riches could be disbursed among his aspiring heirs, Italian courts had to decide which law to apply to his estate—a matter that depended on his nationality. Was Nissim an Italian citizen? A subject of the Bey of Tunis? Had he become stateless? Or was his Jewishness also his nationality? Determining to which state Nissim belonged took a decade-long legal battle involving Jews, Muslims, and Christians across the Mediterranean. The study of this lawsuit helps us rethink the history of belonging through the stories of those whose very existence challenged emerging conceptions of modern citizenship.

 

Jessica Marglin is Professor of Religion, Law, and History, and the Ruth Ziegler Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of Southern California.  She earned her PhD from Princeton and her BA and MA from Harvard.  Her research focuses on the history of Jews and Muslims in North Africa and the Mediterranean, with a particular emphasis on law.  She is the author of Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco (Yale University Press, 2016) and The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean (Princeton University Press, 2022).

 

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This event will be delivered in-person in JHB100 (170 St. George Street) on Monday, January 20, 2025 at 4 PM.

Sponsors

Granovsky-Gluskin Lecture in Jewish Studies

Map

170 St. George Street

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