Présentation

Houssem E. Chachia is Associate Professor of Early Modern History in the Department of History at the University of Tunis (Tunisia). Specialist in Morisco History. Winner of the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award. Board Member of "The Mediterranean Seminar". Co-Founder of “Nadwa Seminar: Tunisia, Mediterranean, and Beyond.” He was a postdoctoral fellow at the CMES at Harvard University (2017–2018). 

His primary research areas include Morisco Studies, with a focus on the social and cultural history of the Moriscos before and after their expulsion. Additionally, he examines and reconstructs representations of Morisco history in both Spain and the Arab world across the modern and contemporary periods. Furthermore, he explores diplomatic relations between the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb in the early modern period. 

He has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the Young Author Category (UAE), the Best Young Researcher of the Year (History section, 2020) from Beit al-Hikma (Tunisia), and the 2017 Arab Youth Award for Research in Religious Studies from the Mominoon Without Borders Foundation for Studies and Research (Morocco). Additionally, in 2015, he was the recipient of the Ibn Battuta Award for Travel Literature, which was bestowed upon him in two categories: studies and manuscript edition. This award was presented by the Arab Center for Travel Literature (London-Abu Dhabi). 

His publications include: The Morisco Landscape: Narratives of Expulsion in Modern Spanish Thought [in Arabic] (640 pp, 2023); Sephardim and Moriscos: The journey of the expulsion and installation in the Maghreb (1492-1756): stories and itineraries [in Arabic] (2 vol. 762 pp, 2015); (Editor and author.) Tunisia, the Mediterranean, and the Moriscos: A Tribute to Slimane Mostafa Zbiss and Mikel de Epalza [In Spanish, English, French] (260.pp, 2023); «Tunis: City of Open Doors” (Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2023); “Los moriscos y la rebelión de las Alpujarras en el pensamiento árabe” (Universidad de Granada); “La diáspora sefardí en Túnez: de finales del siglo XV a mediados del siglo XVIII” (Revista Sefarad,2020); “The Moment of Choice: The Moriscos on the Border of Christianity and Islam” (Routledge, 2017). 

Since 2008, he has been the founder of a blog titled Los Moriscos de Túnez, dedicated to sharing academic and public knowledge about the Moriscos.