Rethinking the History of Nationalism

Doctoral and post-doctoral workshop

Florence, 16-17th May 2019

The University of East Anglia and the University of Florence

The surge of nationalism across Europe and beyond poses the need to deeply rethink its historical roots to shed light on the intellectual and cultural challenges ahead of us. One element usually neglected are the transnational elements contributing to the shaping of nationalistic feelings of belonging. In fact, as Anne Marie Thiesse has argued some time ago, nationalism emerges always in confrontation with other groups. If we were to accept that ‘there is nothing of more international than the creation of national identities’, then the tendency to consider nationalism from an ‘internal’ perspective alone might lead to serious misconceptions and misunderstandings. This conference two-day event will offer a contribution to ongoing debates from the historian’s perspective, highlighting how nationalism is shaped transnationally through complex othering processes that incessantly create borders by transcending them. The main aim is to question the assumptions underlying ‘methodological nationalism’ by looking at concrete historical examples and case studies that might help us challenge commonly accepted views.

The time span will range from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.

The two-day event will be divided into themed panels with ample time for reflection and discussion about Nationalism Studies from the perspective of the historian.  We also plan to record the training sessions for dissemination online. 

This call for papers, circulated among PGRs of the UK consortium part of the CHASE consortium, is intended for doctoral and post-doctoral students affiliated to the Department SAGAS (University of Florence) and the Department of History and Civilization (EUI, Florence).

If you would like to present a paper (10/15 minutes), please send an abstract (max. 300 words in English) with a title and a short biography by  Dr Matthew D’Auria (m.dauria@uea.ac.uk), not later than 31 March 2019.

Please note that the working language will be English. There will be no fees for participating and limited funding might be available.

Benoit Vaillot

Agrégé et docteur en histoire • Chercheur postdoctoral Labex SMS à Framespa UMR 5136 (Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès) • Chercheur associé ARCHE UR 3400 (Université de Strasbourg) • Frontières, souverainetés et identités XIXe-XXIe siècles • Border/Borderlands Studies

More Posts - Website - Twitter - LinkedIn


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Benoit Vaillot (March 6, 2019). Rethinking the History of Nationalism. Nationalism Working Group. Retrieved December 7, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/sgwo


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.