Dónal Hassett

Prof Dónal Hassett

Professor of History

Email Donal.Hassett@mu.ie

Biography

Dónal Hassett is a colonial historian. His research focuses on two key interrelated fields of study: the history of the French Empire, in particular North Africa, and the legacies of conflict, especially veteran studies. He has published widely on these topics and his first monograph, Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939, appeared in August 2019 with Oxford University Press.

He is the Principal Investigator on the ERC Starting Grant Project COLVET- Ex-Soldiers of Empire: Colonial Veterancy in the Interwar World (2024-2028). This trans-imperial project compares the definition of veterancy, the treatment of veterans, and their political activism across the French, British, Italian and American colonial empires in the interwar period. You can access the project website here: https://colvet.eu/

He is also interested in analysing Ireland's place in colonial history and thinking comparatively across colonial contexts.

Research

Research Interests

My research interests are focused in the areas of French Colonial History and Veteran Studies.
I am primarily interested in how those who participated in military conflicts in the colonial world grappled with the legacies of war in peacetime. My work seeks to bring together the approaches used by historians of the colonial word with the analyses of those who study veterancy to lay the foundations for a global history of the war veteran.

Research Projects

	Title	Role	Description	Start date	End date	Amount
	ERC Starting Grant, COLVET- Ex-Soldiers of Empire: Colonial Veterancy in the Interwar World	Principal Investigator	COLVET will develop the first comprehensive and comparative account of colonial veterancy in what was the foundational era for modern conceptions of the veteran, the interwar period.

Publications

Book

	Year	Publication
	2019	Hassett, Dónal (2019) Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Peer Reviewed Journal

	Year	Publication
	2023	Hassett, Dónal (2023) 'Rupture and reconciliation: the neoliberal logics of Emmanuel Macron’s colonial memory policies'. Modern and Contemporary France, 32 (1):31-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639489.2023.2246912
	2022	Hassett, Dónal; Akhtar, Shahmima; Nic Dháibhéid, Caoimhe; McBride, Ian; McMahon, Timothy G.; Ohlmeyer, Jane; McAtackney, Laura; Kenny, Kevin (2022) 'Round table: Decolonising Irish history? Possibilities, challenges, practices'. Irish Historical Studies, 45 (168):303-332. https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2021.57
	2019	Hassett, Dónal (2019) 'Acknowledging or Occluding “The System of Violence”?: The Representation of Colonial Pasts and Presents in Belgium’s AfricaMuseum'. Journal of Genocide Research, 22 (1):26-45. [DOI]
	2019	Hassett, Dónal; Moyd, Michelle (2019) 'Introduction: writing the history of colonial veterans of the Great War'. First World War Studies, 10 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/19475020.2019.1701522
	2019	Hassett, Dónal (2019) 'Catering for and controlling subject veterans: the Comité des Amitiés Africaines and North African ex-servicemen in the interwar period'. First World War Studies, 10 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/19475020.2019.1701516
	2019	Hassett. Dónal (2019) 'Colonialism and Contested Cultures of Victory in the French Empire of the 1920s'. Journal of Contemporary History, 54 (4). [DOI]
	2018	Hassett, Dónal (2018) 'Contested commemoration: The Great War, memory and politics in contemporary Algeria'. International Journal of Francophone Studies, 21 (3-4). https://doi.org/10.1386/ijfs.21.3-4.209_1
	2016	Hassett, Dónal (2016) 'Pupilles de L'empire: Debating the Provision for Child Victims of the Great War in the French Empire'. French Historical Studies, 39 (2). https://doi.org/10.1215/00161071-3438043

Book Chapter

	Year	Publication
	2024	Dónal Hassett (2024) 'Rallying, Reconfiguring and Resisting Empire: Dynamics of the First World War in France’s Colonies' In: The Routledge History of the First World War. London : Routledge.
	2022	Hassett, Dónal (2022) '“The Example of Valiant Little Ireland” The Irish Revolution in Algerian Nationalist Thought' In: The Irish Revolution: A Global History. New York : New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479808908.003.0006
	2022	Hassett, Dónal (2022) 'Must Leopold Fall?: The Renovation of the AfricaMuseum and Belgium’s Place in International Debates on the Decolonisation of Public Heritage' In: Unfinished Histories: Empire and Postcolonial Resonance in Central Africa and Belgium. Leuven : Leuven University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv31djqxw.5
	2020	Hassett, Dónal (2020) 'An Independent Path: Algerian Nationalists and the League Against Imperialism' In: The League Against Imperialism: Lives and Afterlives. Leiden : Leiden University Press.
	2018	Hassett, Dónal (2018) 'Reinventare l’impero all’ombra della Grande Guerra. Cittadinanza imperiale e “momento wilsoniano” nell’Algeria coloniale' In: Sudditi o cittadini? L’evoluzione delle appartenenze imperiali nella Prima guerra mondiale. Rome : Viella. https://doi.org/10.23744/2035
	2018	Hassett, Dónal (2018) 'A Tale of Two Monuments The War Memorials of Oran and Algiers and Commemorative Culture in Colonial and Post-Colonial Algeria' In: COMMEMORATING RACE AND EMPIRE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR CENTENARY. Liverpool : Liverpool University Press. [DOI]
	2016	Hassett, Dónal (2016) 'Defining Imperial Citizenship in the Shadow of World War I: Equality and Difference in the Debates around Post-War Colonial Reform in Algeria' In: Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War I. Leiden : Brill.

Book Review

	Year	Publication
	2024	Dónal Hassett (2024) Review: The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France’s Colonies. [Book Review] https://doi.org/10.1080/03612759.2024.2420394
	2023	Dónal Hassett (2023) Review: Unexpected voices in imperial parliaments. [Book Review] https://doi.org/10.1080/02606755.2023.2185360
	2022	Dónal Hassett (2022) Review: Les Ratonnades d’Alger, 1956: Une histoire de racisme colonial. [Book Review] https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2022.2076301
	2021	Dónal Hassett (2021) Review: The New White Race: Settler Colonialism and the Press in French Algeria, 1860-1914. [Book Review]
	2019	Dónal Hassett (2019) Review: Les communistes et l'Algérie: Des origines à la guerre d’indépendance, 1920–1962. [Book Review] https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2019.1668588
	2019	Dónal Hassett (2019) Review: Translating Frantz Fanon across continents and languages. [Book Review] https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2019.1585937
	2019	Dónal Hassett (2019) Review: The Cult of the Modern: Trans-Mediterranean France and the Construction of French Modernity. [Book Review]

Edited Journal Issue

	Year	Publication
	2019	Dónal Hassett; Michelle Moyd (2019) 'Colonial Veterans of the First World War'. [Edited Journal Issue] https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfww20/10/1?nav=tocList