In Les intellectuels juifs de Bagdad. Discours et allégeances (1908-1951), Aline Schlaepfer focuses on a group of Arabic-speaking Jewish intellectuals in Baghdad. Making use of historical materials, the book examines how strategies were negotiated by Jewish intellectuals in order to maintain a presence in the Iraqi public sphere. By analyzing their discourses and allegiances, Aline Schlaepfer shows that they continuously expressed their views on the most sensitive political debates in Iraq, such as nationalism, sectarianism, anti-colonialism, anti-Nazism and anti-Fascism. Les intellectuels juifs de Bagdad. Discours et allégeances  (1908-1951), follows their trajectory during a turbulent period in Iraqi history; the 1908 Young-Turk Revolution, the creation of Iraq, several coups d’état, and the creation of the State of Israel, eventually leading to their departure from Iraq in 1951.

Aline Schlaepfer holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Geneva. She was a visiting research student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and a lecturer at the University of Geneva. She was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the Swiss National Science Foundation and is now a research affiliate at the American University of Beirut (CAMES), where she currently lives. She is the author of Les intellectuels juifs de Bagdad. Discours et allégeances (1908-1951), Leiden: Brill 2016, among other publications.

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