A very interesting article from the opening of the SNP conference – Alex Salmond seems to be evoking Anthony Smith in a speech on Scotland’s claim to North Sea oil. The report in the Scotsman likens Salmond’s rhetoric to that of the “chosen peoples”. “We want to see these resources mobilised for the Scottish people,” Mr [...]
Archive for the ‘Nationalism in the News’ Category
Scotland’s divine claim to resources
Posted in Nationalism in the News on October 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Misha Glenny tonight on Radio 4
Posted in Events, Nationalism in the News on October 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The Invention of Germany Radio 4, 8.00pm New series from Misha Glenny, tracing the history of how Germany came to be a nation, as opposed to a loose federation of many states and principalities. In three half hours he will go from the siege (and burning) of Magdeburg in 1631 to how it has become [...]
Multiculturalism in the UK
Posted in Nationalism in the News on February 5, 2011 | 2 Comments »
David Cameron argued at a security conference in Munich that the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism. Hence, he claims that multiculturalism has “failed” to prevent “the radicalisation of Muslims”. In his own words, “we have allowed the weakening of our collective identity. Under the doctrine [...]
Demos in the Arab World
Posted in Nationalism in the News on February 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
One need only keep an eye on the current news to be struck by yet another wave of demos-driven nationalism in Tunisia and Egypt, and perhaps beyond. To me this once again underscores that it is demos (the demand of a people for self government) rather than ethnos (the symbolisation of cultural identity) that is [...]
Haggis
Posted in Nationalism in the News on January 25, 2011 | 1 Comment »
This being Burns’ day/night, the on-line Guardian devoted its regular food blog to a discussion of haggis: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/jan/25/consider-haggis While the article and many of the comments dwell (understandably) on the culinary merits (or demerits) of the dish, a fair bit of the debate also relates to the national dimension rather than the food itself. What [...]
Michael Keating on Scottish independence
Posted in MSc in Nationalism Studies, Nationalism in the News on November 18, 2010 | 5 Comments »
Last Tuesday, Michael Keating, another important scholar concerned with national identity and nationalism, held a lecture in the faculty of law. In my surprise, I could not spot any of you there – sadly, as it was one of the most interesting lectures of this semester. In brief, he considered the future challenges for Scottish [...]
Ernest Gellner’s biography: Left and Right United
Posted in Nationalism in the News on November 17, 2010 | 2 Comments »
John Hall’s excellent biography of Ernest Gellner (Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography, London: Verso, 2010) has already received praised from the Wall Street Journal, see: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720504575377911040368760.html However, this Sunday’s Observer newspaper, included praise from the eminent Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm, who chose Hall’s biography as his book of the year, see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/14/best-books-of-year-2010-franzen So, Left and [...]
Frank Ferudi on the 99%
Posted in Comment, MSc in Nationalism Studies, Nationalism in the News on October 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Re the previous post on the 99% as an ‘imagined community’, see Frank Ferudi’s skeptical comments in Spiked Online, at: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/printable/11309/
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