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Pierre Singaravélou

Portrait of Pierre   Singaravélou

Pierre Singaravélou (b. 18 Jan 1977, Bordeaux, France) is a French historian, a British Academy Global Professor of History at King’s College, London, a Professor of Modern History at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, and the director of the Center for Asian History (Sorbonne). He specializes in the modern history of European colonial empires, social sciences in colonial context, decolonization, museum history and globalization, counterfactual history, and alternate histories of the future. 

With a French mother and a father of Indian origin born in 1945 in Pondichéry [Puducherry, South India] who studied in France and moved his family to the French West Indies in order to complete his PhD thesis on the Indian immigration in the Caribean Islands, he spent his first years in a ​‘creole’ social context. Influenced by historian Christophe Charle at Sorbonne University, he submitted his doctoral thesis on ​“colonial sciences under the French Third Republic.” In the course of his research, he was the first non-member of EFEO to be given full access to the School’s archive by EFEO Director Denys Lombard in 1996 – 1998.

Director of the publishing house Publications de la Sorbonne (Sorbonne University Press) from 2015 to 2019, he joined King’s College to pursue his work on globalization. He is the co-editor of Monde(s), a French journal of global history, and the founding editor of the book series ​“histoire-monde”. 

Expanding his research on French colonial empire to its counterparts, and to the emergence of local elites in spite of colonial rule, Singaravélou devoted a book to the social experiment in the Chinese city of Tianjin in 1900 – 2, Tianjin Cosmopolis (2017), showing how the nine foreign concessions established there became, under the modernising influence of Chinese elites, a unique place for interaction between natives and foreigners. 

Singaravélou was one of the coordinators [with Nicolas Delalande, Florian Mazel, Yann Potin] of Histoire mondiale de la France (ed. Patrick Boucheron, Seuil, Paris 2017), an exercise in global history which was emulated through Europe with Italian (Storia mondiale dell’Italia), Sicilian (Storia mondiale della Sicilia), Dutch (Wereldgeschiedenis van Nederland), Flamish (Wereldgeschiedenis van Vlaanderen), Spanish(Historia mundial de España), Catalonian (Història mundial de Catalunya) and German (Deutschland. Globalgeschichte einer Nation) versions.

The following year, in 2018, he curated the first exhibition of cartographic works in a museum of art and archaeology, ​“The World seen from Asia” at Guimet Museum, presenting an opposite stance to the Eurocentric perspective. In 2020 – 1, he developed the research program ​“The Worlds of Orsay” at Orsay Museum, Paris, placing the museum’s collections (painting, furniture, sculpture, photography…) in a worldwide context. And while holding the Chair of Louvre Museum in 2022, he studied ​“the lost museums of the Louvre in the 19th century: ethnographic museum, marine museum, Spanish museum, Algerian museum, Mexican museum, Chinese museum…”

Publications

  1. L’École française d’Extrême-Orient ou L’institution des marges (1898−1956): Essai d’histoire sociale et politique de la science coloniale, L’Harmattan, Paris, 1999 — CNRS Éditions, 2019.
  2. L’Empire des géographes. Géographie, exploration et colonisation 19e-20e s., Belin, Paris, 2008.
  3. Au sommet de l’Empire: Les Élites européennes dans les colonies du 16e au 20e siècle, Peter Lang (co-ed), 2009.
  4. L’Empire des sports: Une histoire de la mondialisation culturelle. Belin, Paris, 2010 (with Julien Sorez).
  5. Territoires impériaux: Une histoire spatiale du fait colonial, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2011 (with Hélène Blais and Florence Deprest).
  6. Professer l’Empire: Les « Sciences coloniales » en France sous la IIIe République, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2011.
  7. Atlas des Empires coloniaux 19e-20e siècles, Autrement, Paris, 2012 (with Jean-François Klein and Marie-Albane de Suremain).
  8. Les Empires coloniaux, XIXe-XXe siècles, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2013.
  9. Grand Atlas des empires coloniaux, Autrement (illustrated edition), Paris, 2015,‎ 288 p, ISBN13‎ 978 – 2746742406.
  10. Pour une histoire des possibles: Analyses contrefactuelles et futurs non advenus, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2016 (with Quentin Deluermoz) ENG: A Past of Possibilities: A History of What Could Have Been (with Quentin Deluermoz), Yale University Press, 2021.
  11. Tianjin Cosmopolis: Une autre histoire de la mondialisation, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2017.
  12. Histoire mondiale de la France (coordination, dir. Patrick Boucheron), Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2017. ENG: France in the World: A New Global History, Other Press, 2019 (co-ed, dir. Patrick Boucheron)
  13. Histoire du Monde au XIXe siècle, Fayard, Paris 2017 (co-ed with Sylvain Venayre).
  14. Le Monde vu d’Asie: Une histoire cartographique, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2018 (with Fabrice Argounès). ENG: Mapping the World: Perspectives from Asian Cartography (with Fabrice Argounès), Singapore National Library, 2021.
  15. Décolonisations. Éditions du Seuil-Arte éditions, Paris, 2020 (with Karim Miské and Marc Ball). ENG: Decolonization (with Karim Miské and Marc Ball), Other Press, 2022.
  16. Dictionnaire historique de la comparaison, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2020 (co-ed).
  17. Le Magasin du Monde: La mondialisation par les objets du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours, Fayard, 2020 (with Sylvain Venayre).
  18. Les Mondes d’Orsay, Éditions du Seuil-Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 2021.
  19. L’Epicerie du Monde: La mondialisation par les produits alimentaires du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours, Fayard, 2022 (with Sylvain Venayre).

Exhibitions

  1. The World Seen From Asia, Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts, Paris, 2018.
  2. Another History of the World, Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations, Marseille, France, 2019 – 2022.
  3. The Worlds of Orsay, Orsay Museum, Paris, 2020 – 2021,
  4. Mapping the World: Perspectives from Asian cartography, Singapore National Library, Singapore, 2021 – 2.

Filmography

Decolonizations, TV documentary series (3 X 52 minutes), written with K. Miské and M. Ball, Arte, January 2020). [voice-over by Reda Kateb, ​‘39th International URTI Grand Prix for Author’s Documentary’ (UNESCO), Nov 2020.]

Photo by Claire Delfino