Arthur Asseraf

Dr Arthur Asseraf is an Associate Professor in the History of France and the Francophone World at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Pembroke College. He serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies and maintains active academic engagements across France, Sweden, and international scholarly networks.

His educational trajectory began in Paris, led to undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, and expanded through academic work in the United States and Lebanon before his 2017 return to Cambridge.

Asseraf's research pioneers intersections of media history, colonialism, and race across modern France, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. His acclaimed monograph Electric News in Colonial Algeria (2019) revealed how media intensification deepened social divisions in colonial contexts, while Le désinformateur (2022) traced 19th-century Algerian disinformation practices to contemporary media landscapes. Current projects dissect race discourse in post-decolonization France (1960s-1970s) and 20th-century Mediterranean radio history, establishing him as a leading voice in transnational historical scholarship.

His publication trends demonstrate rigorous methodological innovation, connecting historical colonial media ecosystems to modern disinformation through comparative analyses of Algeria, France, and the Mediterranean basin across multiple languages and temporal frameworks.

Major recognitions include the 2024 Prix lycéen du livre d'histoire for Le désinformateur and the 2020 Middle East Studies Book Prize for Electric News in Colonial Algeria.

As an educator, Asseraf teaches undergraduate courses in modern European history and 20th-century World History, directs a specialized third-year module on global radio history, and supervises graduate research in the Maghreb, French Empire, and media-colonialism intersections. His leadership in the Colonisations: notre histoire project (2023) mobilized 250+ international scholars to reframe colonial historiography for public audiences, reflecting substantial grant-writing success and collaborative vision.

Though not tied to a formal laboratory, his work thrives through the Colonisations consortium's global network and Cambridge-based research groups focused on Mediterranean and colonial studies.