ASEN

Symposium on nationalism and irony
2023-09-07 10:30 - 16:30 (Europe/Paris) | Online
Jump to: Schedule | Introduction | Abstracts | Biographies
In collaboration with Dr Alex Marshall (SHU), we are delighted to offer the opportunity to join in the third annual Symposium on Nationalism on Irony.
Papers to be presented include

Discursive (re)production of internet-mediated Chinese national identity – Zhiwei Wang
Irony on the edge: the behaviour of far-right deputies in the State Duma of the Russian Empire (1905-1917) – Dr Anastasia Mitrofanova
More quixotic than ever: ironic re-ironisation of national iconography in Zoo’s ‘Panya’ (2022) – Dr Laia Darder & Dr Alex Marshall
‘Being both’ Scottish and British: irony among Scots in London

Please click here to register for the symposium on Zoom.
Schedule
1030-1100: Arrival and Welcome
1100-1230: Panel 1: The Trolls
𐫱 Zhiwei Wang: Discursive (Re)production of Internet-Mediated Chinese National Identity
𐫱 Chris Cannell ‘Being both’ Scottish and British: Irony among Scots in London
1230-1330: Lunch
1330-1500: Panel 2: Regions and Overlaps
𐫱 Dr. Laia Darder and Dr. Alex Marshall: More Quixotic than Ever: Ironic Re-Ironisation of National Iconography in Zoo’s ‘Panya’ (2022)
𐫱 Dr. Anastasia Mitrofanova: Irony on the Edge: The Behaviour of Far-Right Deputies in the State Duma of the Russian Empire (1905-17)
1500-1515: Break
1515-1630: Round Table Discussion
Introduction
For the third year in a row, participants at the Nationalism and Irony Symposium will attempt to interpret the complex, often insidious interaction between irony and nationalism, both extreme and mainstream. Research into this intersection seems to be gaining traction, helping understand both the more serious aspects of humour and how nationalisms navigate their own absurdities and incongruities.
Less than a decade ago, irony had become almost a staple of reactionary discourse, yet this association seems to have weakened as the far-right have gained, consolidated and at times lost power and influence. Yet also ubiquitous, innocuous forms of nationalism are shaped and processed using irony, proud of a particular style of or deftness with irony, or fought over irony as a battleground.
Previous years’ events considered the use of irony to test the water, and how it “allows room for the possible turning of coats”, but also serves as a way to distinguish the in-group who get the joke from baffled out-groups. We thought about the uses a captive, defanged form of subversion can offer to power, or to stigmatised groups having difficult conversations in public. We thought about how useful an ambiguous level of commitment can be to comfortably navigate directly conflicting beliefs. And we speculated that, if everyone laughs at the same joke for the different reasons, irony can hide ideology in an innocuously transmissible form. The first year we ended by asking how Boris Johnson gets away with it, and successfully manages to be his own parody. The second year, we wondered when and how this stopped working.
This year we have, among other themes, Chinese social media, Scottish identity in London, the possibility of an entirely ironic national identity, satires of Spain and tourism in Catalan hip-hop, and provocations by far-right deputies in the pre-Revolution Russian Duma.
Abstracts
Chris Cannell, University of Edinburgh, ‘Being both’ Scottish and British: Irony among Scots in London
Scottish people who live in London present a distinct case for examining irony and its relationship to nationalism. This paper presents ongoing data analysis of fieldwork among this population, where semi-structured interviews raised interesting ironical understandings, and ironic and humorous uses, of national identity and personal cultural repertoire and resources.
Scots in London present a unique, and under-researched, site of inquiry into this topic, due to their liminal, “edge”-case status within the multinational United Kingdom. Irony here is used as both a conscious way of navigating London’s massive multiplicity and assumed ‘Englishness’ and, in what I call the ‘dramatic ironic’ form, a mostly unconscious, and yet sociologically analysable from data, way of separating out the differential, nested, and potentially conflictual, but obviously closely allied, concepts of being both Scottish and British. Further, the ironic approach to national identity, with irony as a fairly fluid concept, and humour as something necessarily frame-breaking, shows that identities, and identifications, are not fixed or consistent, but things that are contingent on audience, and also on moment-to-moment self identifications. A joke for one person may not be meant as a joke for another. And even further, it is the contention of this paper that this ironic content to national identity actual allows Scots in London to navigate the ambiguities of ‘being both’ – joking about Scottishness at one moment and Britishness the next is a way for Scots to finesse the schismogenetic ‘narcissism of small difference’, as well as the weight of long history and vicissitudes of contemporary politics, that exists between these two possible forms of identification.
This paper argues that irony is a fundamental aspect of London Scot’s perception of, and ability to navigate, the multi-nationality of the United Kingdom. This population has an idiosyncratic place in both UK politics and the social processes of the imperial and post-imperial metropole, and their position is rendered into global import by the historical and present cultural force of London, especially as a way of understanding the longue durée and deep archaeology of London’s present multiculturalism, “superdiversity” and modernity. Scottish Londoner’s use of irony, both witting and unwitting, as a way of reinforcing national identity is worthy of examination.
The history and present understanding of Scottishness in the capital has to navigate and react to an ‘Englishness’ that is both umbral and quintessential. ‘Englishness’ is a cultural artefact that is, following McCrone (2002) and Nairn (1981), of mostly unspoken and yet immense power. Scots in London have a liminality to their national identity which makes irony a fundamental tool in promoting that identity in the face of what McCrone calls the “minus-one”, or datum identity, of (white, middle class, and at times, Anglican) Englishness. The unspoken power of Englishness makes it difficult, in certain cases, to wholeheartedly embrace Britishness, which also becomes a site for ironic engagement. This desire to ‘be both’ in the face of assertive Englishness leads to a ‘dramatic ironic’ identification of certain elements of Britishness with those of Scottishness, but also at times an obscurification as to which is which, they being entangled and nested identities.
The sharing of a “sense of humour”, both Scottish and British, is a key aspect, as is the use of subtle jokey cultural signs, mostly, following Fox and Miller-Idriss (2008), in the form of “everyday nationalism” of consumption: Tunnocks cakes, Buckfast, jokingly sacral ideas around haggis and, more seriously, the ‘correct’ drinking of whisky. What makes this context so fascinating is, as Fox (2018) points out, the spatial and political national “edge” at which Scots find themselves – both ‘outside’ the national boundaries of Scotland, but within the capital of their nominal ‘other’ national identity – Britain. However, the variety of responses to questions about what Britishness entails, and whether London is a British city, were laced with irony, both jokingly, and dramatic in the sometime inability to separate out the qualities of Scottish sensibilities and sense of humour from British ones.
In short, the irony used by Scots in London is multifaceted, in that is sometimes a conscious approach to the promotion and use of a national identity in the face of the sheer scale of multicultural modernity in London, and a reaction to datum Englishness, and sometimes as an unconscious, ‘dramatic ironic’ reaction to the same.
Dr. Laia Darder & Dr. Alex Marshall, Sheffield Hallam University, More Quixotic than Ever: Ironic Re-Ironisation of National Iconography in Zoo’s ‘Panya’ (2022)
Valencian hip-hop group Zoo use the 2022 video to ‘Panya’ to criticise the cultural and political dominance of both Spain over Catalan-speaking areas and, with the blessing of nationalist political forces, the tourist industry over Spain. Filmed in various tourist locations, the denunciation is assembled semiotically and linguistically, in a mixture of Valencian Catalan, Spanish, English and English-accented Spanish by the vocalists dressed as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. This paper will examine the critiques of Spanish nationalism, tourism and capitalism, both explicit in the lyrics and implicit in the video. We will pay particular attention to the ironic use of Don Quixote, a famously satirical figure central to Spain’s literary heritage and national iconography and one of the country’s most recognisable cultural exports, against a backdrop of conflict between Spanish and Catalan national identities. In doing so it will elaborate and attempt to quantify the spiralling multi-layered and self-referential irony, and how the comic appropriation, détournement and anachronistic deployment of Don Quixote reinscribes the self-satire and absurdism often stripped from national symbols. Finally, we will attempt to situate the relationship of the comic figure to straight-faced nationalism both as a site of conflict and tensions between two strategies, the one of denial and expulsion, the other of appropriation and assimilation.
Dr. Anastasia Mitrofanova, Federal Center for Theoretical and Applied Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences – Irony on the Edge: The Behaviour of Far-Right Deputies in the State Duma of the Russian Empire (1905-17)
This presentation examines the tactics employed by far-right deputies in the State Duma, specifically focusing on figures such as Vladimir Purishkevich, Nikolai Markov the Second, Sergei Kelepovskii, and Pavolakii Krushevan. Their behavior was marked by scandalous and extravagant actions. These deputies often resorted to rough humor and offensive irony in their public speeches, particularly when discussing topics related to Jews and socialists. Additionally, they engaged in epatage behavior, with Markov even adopting the external image of Peter the Great. Some of their satirical gestures were on the edge, such as Purishkevich once arriving at the Duma with a red flower in his trousers.
The far-right deputies did not shy away from intertwining irony with violence, as seen in the case of mockery duels, like the ironic duel between Markov and a Jewish deputy, Osip Pergament. Some authors note instances where the far-right deputies intentionally voted alongside socialists to support revolutionary resolutions that contradicted their own viewpoints. One plausible reason behind this behavior is that they were a minority in the left-liberal Duma and felt compelled to employ such strategies to propagate their position. Another perspective suggests that these far-right monarchists fundamentally opposed parliamentary practices and used their participation in the parliament to underscore its superfluity.
Zhiwei Wang, University of Edinburgh, Being Chinese Online – Discursive (Re)production of Internet-Mediated Chinese National Identity
A further investigation into how Chinese national(ist) discourses are daily (re)shaped online by diverse socio-political actors (especially ordinary users) can contribute to not only deeper understandings of Chinese national sentiments on the Chinese Internet but also richer insights into the socio-technical ecology of the contemporary Chinese digital (and physical) world. I propose an ethnographic methodology, with Sina Weibo (a Twitter-like microblogging site) and bilibili (a YouTube-like video-streaming platform) as ‘fieldsites’. The data collection method is virtual ethnographic observation on everyday national(ist) discussions on both platforms. Critical discourse analysis is employed to analyse data. From November 2021 to December 2022, I conducted 36 weeks’ digital ethnographic observations with 36 sets of fieldnotes. For 36 weeks’ observations, I concentrated much upon textual content created by ordinary users. Based on fieldnotes of the first week’s observations, I found multifarious national(ist) discourses on Sina Weibo and bilibili, targeted both at national ‘Others’ and ‘Us’, both on the historical and real-world dimension, both aligning with and differing from or even conflicting with official discourses, both direct national(ist) expressions and articulations of sentiments in the name of presentation of national(ist) attachments but for other purposes. Second, Sina Weibo and bilibili users have agency in interpreting and deploying concrete national(ist) discourses despite the leading role played by the government and two platforms in deciding on the basic framework of national expressions. Besides, there are also disputes and even quarrels between users in terms of explanations for concrete components of ‘nation-ness’ and (in)direct dissent to officially defined ‘mainstream’ discourses to some extent, though often expressed mundanely, discursively and playfully. Third, the (re)production process of national(ist) discourses on Sina Weibo and bilibili depends upon not only technical affordances and limitations of the two sites but also, to a larger degree, some established socio-political mechanisms and conventions in offline China.
Biographies
Dr. Laia Darder & Dr. Alex Marshall
Alex Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in German at Sheffield Hallam University. Following an undergraduate degree in French and German at the University of Edinburgh, he completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford on early Political Zionist concepts of nationhood. He has also worked for several years in the TEFL industry. His publications include Theodor Herzl: Comedy and Politics Mix for Zeteo journal and a chapter on the early communist and proto-Zionist Moses Hess for the collection Nationalism before the Nation-State: Literary Constructions of Inclusion, Exclusion, and Self-Definition (1756–1871).
Dr Anastasia Mitrofanova
Anastasia V. Mitrofanova (born 1973) is Leading Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2019); Professor at the Financial University under the Government of Russia. She received her M.A. (1994) and Ph.D. (1998) from the Department of Philosophy of the Moscow State University, and her Dr.habilitat degree from the Diplomatic Academy of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Russia (2005). Mitrofanova’s research interests include: religious politicisation, fundamentalism, Orthodox Christianity and politics, nationalism in postsoviet states, social movements, late Soviet and postsoviet society, memory politics. Main publications: Politizatsiia ‘pravoslavnogo mira’ (Moskva: Nauka, 2004); The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy: Actors and Ideas (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2005).
Zhiwei Wang
Zhiwei is a third-year PhD student in Sociology at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. His research interests include nations, nationalism and national identity; digital media and social media; cyberpunk culture; biopower and biopolitics; digital health; social capital; Marxism; neoliberalism; digital labour; agency and structure; surveillance; deviance; East Asia; and China. The topic of his PhD research is discursive (re)production of Internet-mediated Chinese national identity, which assesses how Chinese national identity is discursively (re)generated by socio-political actors (especially ordinary users) on China’s Internet. Zhiwei obtained an MA in Digital Media and Society from the University of Sheffield and a Bachelor of Literature in English (International Trade) from Hefei University of Technology. His publication is ‘How the State Builds Collective Identity through the Mass Media? Reading Media, State and Nation: Political Violence and Collective Identities (in Chinese)’ and ‘Jasper M. Trautsch (ed.), Civic Nationalisms in Global Perspective. Routledge, 2019. viii + 213 pp. £36.99 (ebk), £36.99 (pbk), £120.00 (hbk), DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315099002 . His PhD project was awarded the 3rd place of the Management & Social Sciences category of the 11th Doctoral Research Awards (DRA) (UK) organised by the Association of British Turkish Academics (ABTA) on 10th September 2022.
Please click here to register for the symposium.

Vinod Goel | Why is Ethnicity Grouping Universal, Powerful, and Persistent: Insights from Neurodevelopment
2023-07-17 18:00 - 19:30 UTC | Paul Hirst Seminar Room, Birkbeck, 10 Gower Street, 10 Gower Street, London, WC1E 6HE, United Kingdom
Join us at Birkbeck, University of London, in the Paul Hirst Seminar Room, 10 Gower Street, on July 17th from 1800 for a seminar with Prof Vinod Goel on what ethnicity studies can learn from neurodevelopment. Free and no ticket required. The event will also be livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube.
Abstract
Ethnicity is among the most powerful of social/political forces. One definition of an ethnic group is “any group who set themselves apart and/or are set apart by others with whom they interact or coexist on the basis of their perceptions of cultural and/or common ancestry” (Jones, 1997). The various accounts of the phenomenon can be organized into two broad categories of “primordialism” and “constructivism” or “instrumentalism.” The former explains ethnicity as a natural phenomenon grounded in kinship ties and assigned at birth (e.g. Van den Berghe, 1981; Connor, 1993; Blanton, 2015). The latter explains ethnic group formation as a cognitive, social construction strategy for protecting and projecting economic and political interests (e.g. Cohen, 1974; Anderson, 1991). Social Identity Theory is an influential variation on the latter (Hale, 2004). The two accounts need not be mutually exclusive (Fearon, 1999). The critical difference between these theories is their position on the question of the ease or difficulty with which ethnic identities can be changed, once established. On the primordial accounts it is difficult; on the constructivist accounts much easier.
Whatever their merits, these theories struggle to explain the special status of ethnicity in human affairs and convincingly answer the following four questions: (1) What is special about the formation of ethnic groups? (2) Why is it so difficult to change ethnic identities, once formed? (3) Why do ethnic motives have such emotive power? (4) Why is there an asymmetry in the wielding of ethnicity as a political tool (i.e. why is it easier to provoke interethnic violence versus attenuating it)? I will propose a very different account of ethnic grouping in terms of neural maturation trajectories and the tethered nature of minds that can provide substantive answers to these questions. Time permitting, I will also discuss the implications of this model for multiethnic societies and nationalism.
About Vinod Goel
Vinod Goel is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at York University, Toronto, Canada. His research interests include the cognitive, computational, and neural basis of rational decision-making and emotional processing in humans, and more recently, the interaction between the two. His primary methodologies include brain imaging (fMRI & PET), patient studies, and computational modelling.
His most recent book is Reason and Less, published by MIT.
Read more about Prof. Goel at York U.

ASEN Summer School 2023
2023-06-12 - 2023-06-17
The 2023 ASEN Conference will be on Nationalism and Multiculturalism and will be held at the University of Zadar. Please see the summer school pages for full information.

POSTPONED: N&N Debate: The New Nationalism in America and Beyond
2023-05-03 18:00 - 19:30 UTC | Sumeet Valrani Theatre, London School of Economics, Centre Building, Houghton Street, London, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom
Regrettably, this event has been postponed as one of the panellists cannot attend due to family reasons. We will advertise the rescheduled date as soon as we have it.
Join us at the London School of Economics for the 2023 Nations and Nationalism debate on “The New Nationalism in America and Beyond: The Deep Roots of Ethnic Nationalism in the Digital Age” with the authors, Robert Schertzer and Eric Taylor Woods, joined by Sophie Duchesne and Cynthia Miller-Idriss. The debate will be held at the London School of Economics and will be livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube.
For more information on the event and the speakers, please visit the LSE Ideas event page. To register for the event, please email asen@asen.ac.uk.
Across the West, there has been a resurgence of ethnic nationalism, populism, and anti-immigrant sentiment – a phenomenon that many commentators have called the “new nationalism.” In The New Nationalism in America and Beyond, Robert Schertzer and Eric Taylor Woods seek to understand why the bastions of liberalism are proving to be fertile ground for a decidedly illiberal ideology. To do so, they examine the social media campaigns of three of the most successful exemplars of the new nationalism: Donald Trump in the US, Marine Le Pen in France, and Brexit in the UK. Schertzer and Woods show how today’s new nationalists are cultivating support from white majorities by drawing from long-standing myths and symbols to construct an image of the nation as an ethnic community. Their cutting-edge and multidisciplinary approach combines elements of political science, sociology, history, and communication and media studies, to show how leaders today are updating the historical foundations of ethnic nationalism for the digital age.

ASEN Conference 2023: Nationalism and Multiculturalism
2023-04-03 - 2023-04-05
The 2023 ASEN Conference will be on Nationalism and Multiculturalism and will be held at the University of Loughborough. Please see the conference pages for full information.

Ernest Gellner Lecture 2023: Ukraine at War with Andrew Wilson
2023-04-02 16:30 - 17:30 UTC | Stewart Mason Building, Loughborough University
The Ernest Gellner Lecture 2023 will be given by Andrew Wilson on Ukraine at War: Baseline Identity and Social Construction at the University of Loughborough as the traditional ‘eve of conference’ event.
It will also be livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube.

Book discussion: Global Nationalism with Pablo De Orellana and Nicholas Michelsen
2023-03-20 17:00 - 18:00 UTC | Online
We sit down with Pablo de Orellana and Nicholas Michelsen to discuss their new edited volume, Global Nationalism: Ideas, Movements And Dynamics In The Twenty-first Century. We’ll be live on Facebook and YouTube, and members will receive an invite to join on Zoom.
About Global Nationalism
The twenty-first century is witnessing a truly transnational revival of a very old set of ideas. Despite romantic attachments to old symbols, these late modern nationalism movements are not simply replicas of the previous two waves of nationalism in the 1860s and 1920s. Nor is it true that today’s nationalism movements want simply to return to the past and effect a nationalist 1930s-style retrenchment. From Putin’s macho revivalism, through to Trump’s shocking victory and Xi’s strongman regionalism, nationalists engage with the economic context of our time and address issues born of globalization. Crucially, in their vision for international relations they seek the destruction of key international norms in a drive to restore a vision of sovereignty predicated on a survivalist understanding of state power. Global Nationalism, edited and framed by Pablo de Orellana and Nicholas Michelsen, brings together the latest research by up-and-coming early career researchers and scholars. Beginning with a succinct history and typology of contemporary nationalism and its predecessors, this book offers analysis of several cases of contemporary nationalism, examining how specific movements define identity, address grievances and propose identity-based solutions. Key themes and lessons emerge from the study of a variety of cases, from the very ideas animating nationalist thought, to their expression in a wide variety of nationalist movements around the world. The reflections on the ecosystem of nationalist ideas and movements offered in this volume are a vital starting point in the study of contemporary nationalism as a global twenty-first century phenomenon. Global Nationalism is published by World Scientific
About the editors
Pablo de Orellana is Lecturer in International Relations, Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. He is an inter-disciplinary scholar-working on diplomacy, nationalism and the relationship between art and conflict. He graduated in French and Italian at Oxford before a Master’s in International Relations at Cambridge, leading to a PhD at King’s College London, completed in December 2015.
His research on how diplomatic communication constitutes the representations upon which policy is made threads together his passion for political philosophy, literary analysis, history and aesthetics. In this research, theoretical approaches are put to work analysing archival research determining how policy comes to identify the political identity of peoples and their contexts.
Read more about Pablo at KCL or follow Pablo on Twitter.
Nicholas Michelsen is Reader in International Relations at King’s College, London. He was awarded his undergraduate degree in International Relations and Philosophy by the University of Sussex, and holds an MA in International Conflict Studies and an MRes in War Studies from King’s College London. He wrote his doctoral thesis in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.
Read more about Nicholas at KCL.

The Left(s) and Nationalism(s) in contemporary Western Europe
2022-12-13 17:00 - 18:30 UTC | Online
The relationship between the left and nationalism is an ongoing field of discussion and debate. We join the authors of the recent Nations and Nationalism themed section, ‘The Left(s) and Nationalism(s) in contemporary Western Europe’ to look at nationalism and the left in Spain, Italy, the UK, in green politics, and more. As ever, we’ll be live on Facebook and YouTube, with members being invited to join us on Zoom.
The articles
Introduction – Emmanuel Dalle Mulle & Tudi Kernalegenn
The nation of the people: An analysis of Podemos and Five Star Movement’s discourse on the nation – Jacopo Custodi and Enrico Padoan
Greens and the nation: Is small beautiful? – Tudi Kernalegenn
Universalism within: The tension between universalism and community in progressive ideology – Emmanuel Dalle Mulle and Ivan Serrano
“We’re socialists not nationalists”: British labour and the national question(s) – Coree Brown Swan

CANCELLED | Report launch + reception: Right-Wing Populism And What To Do About It
2022-11-25 17:30 - 19:00 (Europe/Paris) | Old Theatre, LSE, Houghton Street, London, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom
Due to industrial action by UCU, this event has been postponed. We hope to reschedule it for Spring 2023. Please click here for more information.

We are delighted to host an event with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung on their new report, Understanding Right-Wing Populism And What To Do About It, with the reports’ authors, Daphne Halikiopoulou and Tim Vlandas, with discussants Diane Bolet, and Sofia Vasilopoulou, with Elliott Green chairing.
The event will take place in the Old Theatre at the London School of Economics, followed by a reception in the Senior Common Room. If you can’t make it in person, we will also be live streaming on Facebook and YouTube.
There is no charge for the event, although it is ticketed.
About the report
The report presents a combination of empirical and qualitative analysis of right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) in 17 European countries.
In order to better understand the success of European right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) the report looks at the Three Ps:

The First P: People: Why do individual people vote for RWPPs? (Demand)
The Second P: Parties: What makes certain RWP parties more successful than others? (Supply)
The Third P: Policies: What is the role of social policies in facilitating and/or moderating RWPP success?

The report can be downloaded for free from the FES.
About the speakers
Professor Daphne Halikiopoulou is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Reading. She has written extensively on nationalism and the cultural and economic determinants of far-right party support. Her research appears in the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Government and Opposition, European Political Science Review, and Nations and Nationalism among others. From 2023, she will be Chair of Comparative Politics at the University of York.
She is joint Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nations and Nationalism (with John Breuilly, John Hutchinson and Eric Kaufmann) and co-editor (with Daniel Stockemer) of the Springer book series in Electoral Politics.
Find out more about Daphne at the University of Reading or follow her on Twitter.
Dr Tim Vlandas is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy and Fellow in St Antony’s College, both at the University of Oxford. He holds a PhD in Political Economy from the London School of Economics. His main area of expertise is comparative political economy, with a particular interest in the relationship between electoral politics, public policies and socio-economic outcomes. His research has been published in over 25 academic journals and has received awards from the American Political Science Association and the European Network for Social Policy Analysis. He has recently co-authored a book entitled “Foreign States in Domestic Markets: Sovereign Wealth Funds and the West”, published by Oxford University Press. His research has been cited by the UK House of Commons, World Bank, International Labour Organisation, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, European Commission, and the United Nations.
Find out more about Tim on his website or follow him on Twitter.
Dr Diane Bolet is a political scientist and comparativist, specialised in voting behaviour, public opinion and far-right politics in Europe and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich.
She holds a PhD in Political Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) looking at how local context shapes voting preferences for the radical right in European countries. Her thesis won an honourable mention for the Ernst B. Haas Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation on European Politics from the European Politics and Society section of APSA. She previously earned a distinction Dual MSc degree in European Politics from Sciences Po, Paris and LSE and a Higher Distinction BA in International Politics from King’s College, London.
Find out more about Diane on her website or follow her on Twitter.

Professor Sofia Vasilopoulou is Professor of European Politics at King’s College, London. Her work examines the causes and consequences of political dissatisfaction among the public and the ways in which this is channelled through party strategies and party competition. Specific themes include Euroscepticism and far right politics. Her research and teaching interests lie in Comparative Politics, Political Behaviour, Party Politics and European Union Politics.
She is Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Political Research and an Honorary Professor at the University of York, where she worked from 2011 to 2022.
Find out more about Sofia on her website or follow her on Twitter.
Dr Elliott Green is Associate Professor of Development Studies in the Department of International Development at the LSE, where he is also director of the PhD programme. His main research areas are ethnic politics and national identity in Africa; patronage, clientelism and African development; and the political demography of modern Africa. He has conducted fieldwork in Uganda, Tanzania and Botswana, and for several years taught a course entitled ‘Poverty and Development’ at the annual LSE-University of Cape Town Summer School. Outside academia he has briefed the British High Commissioner to Uganda twice (in 2008 and 2010) and regularly writes blog entries for a variety of websites.
Find out more about Elliott at the LSE or follow him on Twitter.

The Populism Interviews with Luca Manucci, Aurelien Mondon, and Daphne Halikiopoulou
2022-10-25 17:30 - 18:30 (Europe/Paris) | Online
We sit down to discuss Luca Manucci’s new book, The Populism Interviews: A Dialogue with Leading Experts. In this fascinating volume, Luca talks about populism in all its varied forms with a range of experts
We’re delighted that Luca is joining us along with two of the contributors, Aurelien Mondon and Daphne Halikiopoulou, to talk about the book and about populism
The Populism Interviews is published by Routledge.
We will be live on Facebook and YouTube, and members will receive an invite to join on Zoom.
About the participants
Luca Manucci is Postdoctoral Researcher at the at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL), Portugal. His previous publications include Populism and Collective Memory: Comparing Fascist Legacies in Western Europe (Routledge, 2020).
Daphne Halikiopoulou is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Reading and has written extensively on nationalism and the cultural and economic determinants of far-right party support. From January 2023, she will be Chair in Comparative Politics at the University of York.
Aurelien Mondon is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bath. He currently works on various project related to liberal and illiberal articulations of racism and right-wing populism, and their impact on liberal democracies.

Kin Majorities: Identity and Citizenship in Crimea and Moldova with Eleanor Knott
2022-10-11 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
We sit down with Eleanor Knott to discuss her new book, Kin Majorities: Identity and Citizenship in Crimea and Moldova live on Facebook and YouTube, with members receiving an invite to join on Zoom.
About Kin Majorities
In Moldova, the number of dual citizens has risen exponentially in the last decades resulting in over 1 million, or one third of Moldova’s population, becoming Romanian citizens. Before annexation, many saw Russia as granting citizenship to–or passportizing–large numbers in Crimea. Why do communities engage with citizenship from an external state? And how does engagement with dual citizenship intersect, or not, with identity? Leveraging a bottom-up, interpretive and comparative approach, Kin Majorities (McGill University Press, 2022) analyzes data collected from ordinary people in Crimea and Moldova in 2012 and 2013, just before Russia’s annexation of Crimea, to explore the intersections of identity and citizenship in these cases.
As the book is quite expensive, if anyone would like any help getting a copy the author is happy to be contacted at e.k.knott@lse.ac.uk.
About Dr Knott
Eleanor Knott (she/her, @ellie_knott) is a political scientist and Assistant Professor in Qualitative Methodology in the Department of Methodology, LSE. Her current research interests include the politics of identity and citizenship (predominantly in post-Soviet space) and qualitative research methods, primarily ethics of research. She has published in Perspectives on Politics, Qualitative Research, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Citizenship Studies and Democratization, among others. Her first book—Kin Majorities: Identity and Citizenship in Crimea and Moldova—was published with McGill University Press in 2022.

Special report from the field: The women of the Islamic State in Iraq with Susan Schulman
2022-09-30 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
We sit down with Susan Schulman, to discuss her recent Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism article, ‘Special report from the field: The women of the Islamic State in Iraq‘.
Susan Schulman is a photo-journalist; visit her website at susanschulman.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @susanschulman23.
The event will be streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, with members receiving an invite to join the Zoom meeting.

Prof. Jack Spence OBE - 60 years in international affairs
2022-09-29 18:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | KCL Council Room, K2.29, King's Building, Strand Campus, London, WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom
To Professor Jack Spence’s retirement, Professor Funmi Olonisakin, Vice-Principal KCL, the Department of War Studies, and the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London, and ASEN are hosting a drinks and nibbles reception with a few brief contributions from some of those with whom he has worked, or whom he has mentored and influenced.
Registration for this event is required via KCL.
Professor Jack Spence OBE has been one of the leading figures in International Relations for several decades. He has been awarded 3 honorary doctorates and 4 honorary fellowships, one from King’s College London. His work has covered theory and practice, with focuses on international politics as a field, diplomacy, nationalism, Africa, war and defence education, and poetry and literature. Born in South Africa, he came to Britain for postgraduate study at the LSE.
His eminent academic career spanned academic posts at the University of Natal, University College, Swansea, and the University of Leicester, where he was appointed Professor and Pro-Vice Chancellor. From 1991-1997, he was Director of Studies at Chatham House — the Royal Institute for International Affairs, and subsequently, Academic Advisor at the Royal College of Defence Studies, where he edited the Seaford House Papers. In 1997, he joined the Department of War Studies at King’s, where he is Professor of Diplomacy.
Among his many other roles, he served as Chair of the British International Studies Associ-ation, President of the African Studies Association, and Chair of the David Davies Memorial Institute, as well as Chair of the International Advisory Council of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism. In 2003, he was awarded the OBE for services to military education in the Jubilee Honours.

Taras Kuzio: Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War
2022-06-28 17:30 - 18:30 UTC
Join us for a discussion with Taras Kuzio on his new book, Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War.
We’ll be live on Facebook and YouTube, and members will receive an invitation to join the Zoom call.
This book is the first to provide an in-depth understanding of the 2014 crisis, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Europe’s de facto war between Russia and Ukraine. The book provides a historical and contemporary understanding behind President Vladimir Putin Russia’s obsession with Ukraine and why Western opprobrium and sanctions have not deterred Russian military aggression.
The volume provides a wealth of detail about the inability of Russia, from the time of the Tsarist Empire, throughout the era of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and since the dissolution of the latter in 1991, to accept Ukraine as an independent country and Ukrainians as a people distinct and separate from Russians. The book highlights the sources of this lack of acceptance in aspects of Russian national identity. In the Soviet period, Russians principally identified themselves not with the Russian Soviet Federative Republic, but rather with the USSR as a whole. Attempts in the 1990s to forge a post-imperial Russian civic identity grounded in the newly independent Russian Federation were unpopular, and notions of a far larger Russian ‘imagined community’ came to the fore. A post-Soviet integration of Tsarist Russian great power nationalism and White Russian émigré chauvinism had already transformed and hardened Russian denial of the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians as a people, even prior to the 2014 crises in Crimea and the Donbas. Bringing an end to both the Russian occupation of Crimea and to the broader Russian–Ukrainian conflict can be expected to meet obstacles not only from the Russian de facto President-for-life, Vladimir Putin, but also from how Russia perceives its national identity.
Taras Kuzio is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society .

Gertjan Willems on 'Nationalism and Film: Towards a New Research Agenda'
2022-04-07 14:00 - 15:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
The final plenary from the joint ASEN-NISE 2022 Conference on Nationalism and Media will be broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook.
Abstract
The majority of research on the relationship between nationalism and film has focused on the representation of nations, nationalism and national identities in feature films. This leaves open a wide array of underexplored research possibilities, of which some of the most pertinent ones will be addressed in this talk. Research on the history of nationalism and film in Flanders will serve as a stepping stone to explore new research avenues. I will discuss, among other things, the value of integrated analyses combining the dominant method of representation analysis with production and reception analysis; the importance of a broad conception of nationalism; the notion of multiplicity, both in terms of attention for multiple co-existing national discourses and in terms of the relations between national, subnational and transnational discourses; the relevance of the concept of national indifference for film studies; the potential of amateur films and home movies for a bottom-up approach to nationalism research. The aim of this talk is to formulate a new research agenda for future nationalism and film studies, thereby also touching upon possible new directions for the field of nationalism and media studies at large.
About Michael
Gertjan Willems is a film and media scholar. He is assistant professor at the University of Antwerp. He is affiliated to the Research Centre for Visual Poetics (dept. of Literature) and the Visual and Digital Cultures Research Centre (dept. of Communication Sciences). He is also a guest professor at the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies at Ghent University. He has been guest lecturer or visiting scholar at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Saint-Louis University Brussels, the University of Amsterdam, the Belgian Historical Institute in Rome, the Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, and the University of York. Since 2016, he is chair of the Film Studies section of ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association).
His research interests are aimed at a critical analysis of film and media. He has particular research expertise in media and nation-building, Belgian film history, film adaptations. He is the author of a Dutch-language monograph on the relation between film policy and nation-building in Flanders (2017) and editor of European Film Remakes (with Eduard Cuelenaere and Stijn Joye, 2021) and a Dutch-language anthology on the history of media and nation-building in Flanders (with Bruno De Wever, 2020). He published various articles in journals such as Nations and Nationalism, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Journal of Belgian History and Journal of Popular Film and Television. You can find out more about Gertjan at his blog https://gertjanwillems.wordpress.com/

Athena Leoussi on Art and national modernisation
2022-04-06 14:00 - 15:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
The second plenary from the joint ASEN-NISE 2022 Conference on Nationalism and Media will be broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook.
Abstract
The paper discusses the contribution of European artists to the modern idea of the nation, which transformed European societies into modern national states. It shows how artists engaged with the Enlightenment and Romanticism, and their two distinct visions of a modern world of nations. It shows that both visions set out to revive past traditions – past golden ages: one, the classical tradition of democratic Athens and Republican Rome, the other rural, communal and religious traditions. These revivals of the past became the touchstones of the national revolutions which transformed the relations between centre and periphery, in search of political, social, cultural and human integration. Initially antagonistic, the Enlightenment and Romanticism became a single vision – a single striving: the pursuit of both liberty and identity. Artists set out to articulate these visions as they collided and combined. In so doing, they created not only icons of the modern world of nations, but also modern forms of art.
About Athena
Athena’s research interests include, the history, theories and problems of nationalism and national identity; the comparative study of the peoples of Europe – their political and cultural histories and contacts; the representation of national identity in art; race, anti-semitism and national identity in 19th-century Europe; and the role of the classical tradition in the making of modern national identities. Through her specific interest in the revival of the classical Greek body in modern Europe, she contributed to the British Museum exhibition, ‘Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art‘, curated by Dr Ian Jenkins.
As Founder (1991) of the global, Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN), which she chaired for many years, a member of ASEN’s Advisory Council, and a Founding Editor (1994) of the international journal, Nations and Nationalism (Wiley-Blackwell), which Athena continues to edit with the other members of the editorial team, she have been involved in the development of a variety of research projects, seminars, conferences and colloquia on nationalism and national identity. Her research has received funding from the Greek State, the Hellenic Foundation, and the Irving Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, USA. Athena have been an assessor for the British Academy monographs section, and for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and has been Visiting Senior Fellow in the Government Department, LSE (2008-12), and since 2012, she hold an International Fellowship at the Panteion University (Athens, Greece). She is currently director of European studies at the University of Reading.

Michael Skey on 'Ecstatic nationalism and the media: or why nations are not really imagined communities'
2022-04-05 10:10 - 11:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
The first plenary from the joint ASEN-NISE 2022 Conference on Nationalism and Media will be broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook.
Abstract
Contra to Anderson’s seminal argument, this paper argues that nations are not really imagined but lived, embodied, heard, viewed, represented, materialised and felt communities. For the purposes of this session, and to highlight the crucial role of the media in these processes, I want to focus on the significance of ecstatic nationalism, events designed to commemorate, celebrate or mourn the nation.
Building on Dayan & Katz’s (1992) seminal work on media events, the paper outlines the main features of such ecstatic national events before offering a new framework for making sense of their impact, which draws on insights from social psychology, anthropology and media studies. In the latter case, this includes the role of both legacy media and, increasingly, everyday users on digital platforms in representing both individual nations, but also the international system, as both natural and significant to their own lives.
Alongside, the everyday representation of nations, it is argued that these events are crucial in not only mediating the nation as a more-or-less coherent entity that can be seen and heard and idealised but also in providing opportunities for collective engagement and effervescence. Put simply, mediated representations of such events – which are difficult to escape even if you have no interest in them – offer first-hand evidence that, for substantial numbers, the nation still matters. Moreover, these processes may echo beyond the event itself into the wider routines of daily life allowing national symbols to become part of the comfortable furniture of everyday existence because their meaning and significance has been re-articulated during such periods.
About Michael
Michael jointed the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University in June 2016. He was previously a lecturer in media and cultural studies at University of East Anglia and has also taught sociology at UEL and University of Leicester. He was awarded his PhD by the Department of Media & Communications at the London School of Economics in October 2008. His doctoral research was funded by the AHRC and a subsequent monograph based on this work was awarded the 2012 BSA/Philip Abrams Memorial Prize.
Michael’s research interests are in the areas of; national belonging, globalisation, sociology of everyday life, media events and rituals, mediatization, sport and discourse theory.

The Anthony D. Smith Lecture 2022: Sabina Mihelj on Platform Nations
2022-04-04 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki)
The 2022 Anthony D. Smith Lecture will be given by Professor Sabina Mihelj of Loughborough University on the subject of ‘Platform Nations’ at 1700CET on 4th April in Lecture Hall 1 in the Meerminne building on the City Campus of University of Antwerp at Sint-Jacobstraat 2, 2000 Antwerpen. Attendance is free and open to all; the Lecture will also be streamed online at Facebook Live and YouTube Live.
Abstract
While much has been said about the role of digital media in the proliferation of nationalism, and especially in the resurgence of exclusionary nationalist rhetoric and sentiments, we know much less about the nature and existence of nations in the digital world. For instance, how do nation-states engage in nation-building in the new communication environment? How has the growing impact of digital platforms affected the way cultural institutions engage with national audiences? How and where do ordinary platform users encounter and experience nations online? To address this gap, I introduce the concept of ‘platform nations’, understood as imagined communities whose continued existence depends, in part, on the support of digital platforms. I then focus on three key mechanisms that contribute to the formation and reproduction of platform nations: the politically and commercially motivated development of national platform ecologies; copyright legislation and nation branding strategies designed to protect and promote national cultures in the online domain; and the prevailing practices and preferences among platform users. I reflect on how these mechanisms differ from those at work in pre-digital communication environments, highlighting the influence of platform affordances and business models. I conclude with a set of methodological considerations and suggestions for empirical approaches to researching platform nations.
About Prof. Mihelj

Professor Sabina Mihelj joined Loughborough University in 2004, having previously worked and studied in Slovenia, Hungary and Germany. Over her time at Loughborough, Sabina served as Programme Director for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in communication and media studies. She is currently Director of Research for Communication and Media, and co-led Loughborough’s REF2021 submission to the D34 panel. She is a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College, and sits on the editorial boards of several international media and cultural analysis journals.
Sabina is particularly interested in the comparative study of media cultures across both traditional and new media, with a focus on public culture, nationalism, identity, and audiences. She has written extensively on the relationship between communication, nations and nationalism, Cold War media and culture, and comparative media research. Her research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Norwegian Research Council, and the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
Sabina also has a track record of collaboration with non-academic stakeholders. Her research on Cold War television and everyday life has also served as a basis for several museum exhibitions in South-eastern Europe, the UK and the US, and a TV documentary for BBC 4. This work provided the basis for one of Loughborough’s REF Impact Case Studies, Challenging Cold War Stereotypes. Her current work on the role of media in the rise of illiberalism in Eastern Europe, conducted with Dr Václav Štětka, involves collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union, European Federation of Journalists, and the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities.
You can find out more about Sabina at her profile on Loughborough University’s website or follow her on Twitter.

IWD2022: #BreakTheBias (in Social Science)
2022-03-08 16:00 - 17:30 UTC
To mark International Women’s Day 2022, ASEN Vice-President Daphne Halikiopoulou sits down with Petra Guasti, Anna Triandafyllidou, Rose de Geus, Erin Jenne, and Liz Carter to discuss equality in academia in general and in the social sciences in particular, what progress has been made, and what is still to be done to #BreakTheBias. Join us for what will be a fascinating conversation on Facebook Live or YouTube Live – members will receive an email invitation to join in on Zoom.
About the panellists
Dr Elisabeth Carter is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Keele University and Research Lead in the Centre for Comparative Politics and Policy. Her research focusses on elections, electoral systems and behaviour, party competition, and right-wing extremism and has written on these topics in books published by Manchester University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, and Sage, and in articles in the European Journal of Political Research, the Journal of Political Ideologies, Representation, and West European Politics. Her PhD examined why right-wing extremist parties across Western Europe have experienced such varying levels of electoral success. She came to Keele in 2003 as a post-doctoral researcher within the Keele European Parties Research Unit (KEPRU) to work on a project on the Europeanization of national political parties before being appointed Lecturer in Politics in 2005 and Senior Lecturer in 2011, where she has been School Research Director, REF Lead for Politics and International Studies, and Postgraduate Research Student Director. I was also the Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science from 2016 to 2018. Read more about Dr Carter at Keele.
Prof Erin Jenne is Professor of International Relations at Central European University in Vienna. She was a MacArthur Fellow at Stanford. Her first book, Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment (Cornell University Press, 2007) is the winner of Mershon Center’s Edgar S. Furniss Book Award in 2007 and was also named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine. The book is based on her dissertation, which won the Seymour Martin Lipset Award for Best Comparativist Dissertation. She has published numerous book chapters and articles in International Studies Quarterly, Security Studies, Regional and Federal Studies, Journal of Peace Research, Civil Wars, International Studies Review, Research and Politics, Journal of Democracy, Nationalities Papers and Ethnopolitics. Read more about Prof Jenne at CEU.
Dr Rose de Geus is Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Reading. Her research focusses on women in politics, elections, and comparative politics, particularly women’s voting behaviour; how voters view women politicians; and why women remain under-represented in politics. She has been a postdoc fellow at the University of Toronto, looking at Canadian elections, and at Nuffield College, Oxford, where she worked with the British election study team. Read more about Dr de Geus at Reading.
Prof Anna Triandafyllidou is Canada Excellence Research Chair at Ryerson University. She is engaged into a variety of projects on migration management with a special focus on the role of migrant agency, the interaction between different drivers of migration and the global governance of migration and asylum (including an interest in irregular migration). With regard to migrant integration, she has a special interest in issues of identity, diversity, nationalism and multicultural citizenship approaches. She is also looking into the governance of cultural and religious diversity in different world regions (Europe, Asia, the MENA region). Last but not least she is considering migration and migrant integration in relation to the wider processes of socio-economic and geopolitical transformation that characterise the 21st century. Read more about Prof Triandafyllidou at Ryerson.
Dr Petra Guasti is Associate Professor of Democratic Theory at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on the reconfiguration of the political landscape and revolves around three themes – representation, democratization, and populism – and has appeared in Democratic Theory, Democratization, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, European Political Science, East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, Politics and Governance, East European Politics, and elsewhere. She serve as an expert for Bertelsmann Transformation Index, Sustainable Governance Indicators (for over a decade together with Dr. Zdenka Mansfeldova), and V-Dem since 2018. In 2020 she was appointed to the expert board of the Nation in Transit (Freedom House). Read more about Dr Guasti at Researchgate.
Prof Daphne Halikiopoulou is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Reading, Vice-President of ASEN, and Joint Editor-in-Chief of Nations and Nationalism. She has written extensively on nationalism and the cultural and economic determinants of far-right party support. She is the author of The Golden Dawn’s ‘Nationalist Solution’: explaining the rise of the far right in Greece (with Sofia Vasilopoulou) and numerous articles on European far-right parties. Her research appears in the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Government and Opposition, European Political Science Review, and Nations and Nationalism among others. In 2016, Daphne was the recipient of an American Political Science Association (APSA) European Politics and Society Section Best Paper Award for my co-authored article ‘Risks, Costs and Labour Markets: Explaining Cross-National Patterns of Far-Right Party Success in European Parliament Elections’ (with Tim Vlandas). Read more about Prof Halikiopoulou at Reading.

Sikh Nationalism
2022-02-17 09:00 - 10:30 UTC
We sit down with Gurharpal Singh and Giorgio Shani to discuss their new book, Sikh Nationalism: From a Dominant Minority to an Ethno-religious diaspora, along with John Hutchinson, Atsuko Ichijo, and Ian Talbot as discussants. Join us on Facebook Live or YouTube Live; members will receive an email to join in on the Zoom call.
Drawing on A. D. Smith’s ethno-symbolic approach, Gurharpal Singh and Giorgio Shani use a new integrated methodology to understanding the historical and sociological development of modern Sikh nationalism. By emphasising the importance of studying Sikh nationalism from the perspective of the nation-building projects of India and Pakistan, the recent literature on religious nationalism and the need to integrate the study of the diaspora with the Sikhs in South Asia, they provide a fresh approach to a complex subject. Singh and Shani evaluate the current condition of Sikh nationalism in a globalised world and consider the lessons the Sikh case offers for the comparative study of ethnicity, nations and nationalism.
Gurharpal Singh, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Gurharpal Singh is Emeritus Professor of Sikh and Punjab Studies at SOAS, University of London. His previous publications include The Partition of India (2009), Sikhs in Britain: The Making of a Community (2006), and Ethnic Conflict in India: A Case Study of Punjab (2000).
Giorgio Shani, International Christian University, Tokyo
Giorgio Shani is Professor and Chair of the Department of Politics and International Studies at International Christian University (ICU) in Japan. He is the author of Religion, Identity and Human Security (2015) and Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age (2010).

The Symbolic State
2022-02-09 16:00 - 17:00 UTC | Online
Karlo Basta’s new book, The Symbolic State: Minority Recognition, Majority Backlash, and Secession in Multinational Countries, is a comprehensive re-examination of multinational state politics through the lens of symbolic institutions, covering cases such as Canada, Spain, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. We sit down with Karlo to discuss the book and its ideas live on Facebook and YouTube; as ever, members will receive an email to join in on Zoom. The event will be chaired by Javier Carbonell Castañer (Sciences Po/Edinburgh).
The Symbolic State is published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Karlo Basta is co-director of the Centre on Constitutional Change and co-convenor of the UACES research network ‘(Re)Imagining Territorial Politics in Times of Crisis’, and is a lecturer in the School of Social and Political Science and the University of Edinburgh.

VOX: The Rise of the Spanish Populist Radical Right
2022-01-11 17:00 - 18:30 UTC | Online
We sit down with the authors of the definitive new book on VOX, José Rama, Lisa Zanotti, Stuart J. Turnbull-Dugarte, and Andrés Santana, to examine a new, populist radical right party that has emerged in Spain, a country thought to have been immunised against the far right by the experiences and memories of the Franco dictatorship. Join us on Facebook Live and YouTube Live for the discussion; members will receive an invitation to join via Zoom.
José Rama is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science & International Relations at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Spain. He holds a PhD in Political Science at UAM. He has published in a number of leading journals including, amongst others, Journal of Democracy, Government and Opposition, and European Political Science Review.
Lisa Zanotti is an Associate Researcher at Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales – Universidad Diego Portales (UDP), Chile. She holds a joint PhD in Political Science from Diego Portales University and in Humanities from Leiden University, the Netherlands. She has recently published in Political Studies Review, and Comparative European Politics.
Stuart J. Turnbull-Dugarte is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southampton, UK. He holds a PhD in Political Science from King’s College London, UK. He has published in a number of leading journals including, amongst others, the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of European Public Policy, West European Politics and Electoral Studies.
Andrés Santana is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. He researches in voting behaviour (populist parties, turnout and the decision to vote), women’s political representation, and research methodology. He has recently published in the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, Social Politics, Politics & Gender, and East European Politics.

Russian Nationalism and Russian Foreign Policy
2021-12-13 17:00 - 18:30 UTC | Online
How does Russian nationalism affect Russian foreign policy, and in turn how is Russian nationalism affected by Russian foreign policy? We answer these questions and more with Dr Sofia Tipaldou and Dr Anastasia Shesterinina in our last event of 2021, live on Facebook and YouTube. As ever, members will be emailed a link to join in on the Zoom call.
Dr Tipaldou is Marie Skłodowska Curie Research Fellow at the University of Manchester undertaking an original research project on the Impact of Russian nationalism on Russia’s foreign policy. She is an active multidisciplinary collaborator, and has undertaken a range of international visiting fellowships resulting in co-authored scholarly publications. Her published research centres on Russian and Greek nationalism, the far right, social movements, and comparative nationalism studies.
Our respondent will be Dr Shesterinina, who is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield, as well as being a UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellow and Director of the Centre for the Comparative Study of Civil War. Dr Shesterinina’s interests lie at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and qualitative methodology. Her field-intensive research explores the internal dynamics of and international intervention in contemporary armed conflict, with a focus on social mobilization, ex-combatant demobilization and reintegration, and civilian protection norms and practices.

The transnational circulation of digital nationalism
2021-12-06 16:00 - 17:30 UTC | Online
We join the authors of the forthcoming Nations and Nationalism themed section on ‘the transnational circulation of digital nationalism’ to discuss their papers. Join us live on Facebook or YouTube; as ever, members will receive an invitation to join in on Zoom.
The papers are all #openaccess and so can be read free of charge. They are:

‘The transnational circulation of digital nationalism‘ by Krisztina Lajosi and Pál Nyíri
‘From cyberfascism to terrorism: On 4chan/pol/ culture and the transnational production of memetic violence‘ by Cathrine Thorleifsson
‘Emergent nationalism in China’s sociotechnical networks: How technological affordance and complexity amplify digital nationalism‘ by Florian Schneider
‘New forms of cultural nationalism? American and British Indians in the Trump and Brexit Twittersphere‘ by Eviane Leidig, Bharath Ganesh, and Jonathan Bright

Dr. Eviane Leidig is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) in The Hague, Netherlands. Her research focuses on the far-right, gender, and online radicalization, recruitment, and propaganda, as well as online governance. Her regional expertise includes India, North America, and Europe. She has published in Nations & Nationalism, Patterns of Prejudice, Media & Communication, Religions, and Routledge, and has edited two volumes on the radical right (Ibidem-verlag). She is a co-editor and co-founder of a new book series, ‘Global Studies of the Far Right’, at Manchester University Press. Eviane is an affiliate at the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo; an Associate Fellow at the Global Network on Extremism & Technology (GNET); and was a founding member of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR). She has given talks for policymakers such as the U.S. State Department, European Commission, national and regional intelligence agencies, and law enforcement. She is regularly featured in international media outlets such as Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, The Independent, and Radio Free Europe. Her forthcoming book is on far-right female social media influencers.
Florian Schneider, PhD, Sheffield University, is Senior University Lecturer in the Politics of Modern China at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. He is managing editor of Asiascape: Digital Asia, director of the Leiden Asia Centre, and the author of three books: Staging China: the Politics of Mass Spectacle (Leiden University Press, 2019, recipient of the ICAS Book Prize 2021 Accolades), China’s Digital Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2018), and Visual Political Communication in Popular Chinese Television Series (Brill, 2013, recipient of the 2014 EastAsiaNet book prize). In 2017, he was awarded the Leiden University teaching prize for his innovative work as an educator. His research interests include questions of governance, political communication, and digital media in China, as well as international relations in the East-Asian region.
Cathrine Thorleifsson (b.1982) is a Researcher at the Centre for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo. Cathrine holds a PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2012). She has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork amongst far right activists in Europe, Israel and cyberspace. The past decade she has been researching and writing on nationalism, belonging, racisms and far right politics. Her recent books include: Nationalist responses to the crises in Europe: old and new hatreds (Routledge 2019) and Nationalism and the Politics of Fear in Israel (I.B. Tauris 2015). Cathrine has studied Arabic at the University of Damascus and Hebrew at the University of Haifa. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. In addition to her academic pursuits, Cathrine has carried out consultancy work for the UNDP, the World Bank, the European Commission and a number of ministries on the dynamics of far right radicalization. Cathrine frequently provides expert analysis for policy makers as well as print and broadcast media.
Dr Krisztina Lajosi is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. Her main research area is nationalism and transnationalism studies, with a special focus on the intersections between the history of culture, media, and political thought. Her expertise is 19th-century nation-building movements and the cultural dimensions of European nationalism. Her main publications include the book Staging the Nation: Opera and Nationalism (Brill, 2018) and the edited volumes The Matica and Beyond: Cultural Associations and Nationalism in Europe (Brill, 2020) and Choral Societies and Nationalism in Europe (Brill, 2015). From 2011-2016 she was the leader of a research project funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) on “National Music and Cultural Transfer in Europe.” She is currently working on a project about representations of the “Gypsy” in European culture. Website: http://www.uva.nl/profiel/l/a/k.k.lajosi/k.k.lajosi.html
Prof. Pál Nyíri holds the chair of Global History from an Anthropological Perspective at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He pursued undergraduate studies of chemistry in Moscow, Budapest, and New Jersey, followed by graduate training in Asian studies in Oregon. He also had research fellowships in Oxford, Budapest, and Berlin, and has taught at Macquarie University in Sydney. His research area includes human mobility (particularly migration) and the cultural politics surrounding its management and containment. He is especially interested in Chinese nationalism, the politics of immigration in Eastern Europe, and comparative approaches to Eastern Europe and China. Website: https://research.vu.nl/en/persons/pal-nyiri

The evolution of nationalisms
2021-10-28 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Paris) | Online
Will Kerr’s new book, Darwinian Social Evolution and Social Change: The Evolution of Nationalisms introduces the value of a Darwinian social evolutionary approach to understanding social change. We focus on how Will applies that approach to the study of nationalism.
Darwinian Social Evolution and Social Change: The Evolution of Nationalisms is published by Palgrave Macmillan https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030779986. A discount code will be given out at the event.
With Will Kerr (University of Derby), Atsuko Ichijo (Kingston University), and Siniša Malešević (UCD)
Join us on Facebook Live and YouTube Live. Members will receive a link to join in on Zoom.

Ethnographic Methods and the Study of Nationalism
2021-10-11 16:30 - 18:00 (Europe/Paris) | Zoom
What are the advantages and challenges of studying nationalism and national identity through ethnographic methods? What does it get at, and what might it miss? Continuing ASEN’s interest in diverse methodological approaches to nationalism, in this webinar four scholars of nationalism who have used ethnographic methods in their research explore and reflect on these issues. With Ellie Knott (LSE), Charles Leddy-Owen (University of Portsmouth), Jon Fox (University of Bristol), and Jonathan Hearn (University of Edinburgh).
Join us on Facebook Live and YouTube Live. Members will receive a link to join in on Zoom.

Race and Nation
2021-07-15 15:00 - 16:30 UTC | Online
What is race, and what is the relationship between race and nation? How have differences in human physical appearance been interpreted, in different human societies, and how have they influenced social and national alignment/exclusion in time and space? Wow can the academy a) contribute to a better understanding of the power of the concept of race in contemporary Western politics and b) maintain the boundaries between politics and science? We look at these questions and more with Swati Chawla (University of Virginia), John Solomos (University of Warwick), and Peter Mentzel (Liberty Fund), and chaired by Athena Leoussi (University of Reading).
Join us on Facebook Live or YouTube Live – members will receive an invitation by email on the day to join the Zoom call.

Where's sport in (researching) the nation?
2021-06-07 15:30 - 16:30 UTC | Online
Following a lengthy discussion on Twitter debating the peculiar absence of sport related topics from both big international Nationalism Studies conferences as well as the rather peripheral role the topic has been having within leading academic journals in the field, ASEN is delighted to present the first of two events looking at nationalism and sport (and just in time for the Euros!).
With Alan Bairner (Loughborough), Atsuko Ichijo (Kingston), Jon Fox (Bristol), and Richard Arnold (Muskingum). Chaired by Dario Brentin (UCL). Join us on Facebook Live or YouTube Live – members will receive an invite to join in on Zoom.

Quantitative measurement of ethnic and national identity
2021-04-27 15:30 - 16:30 UTC | Online
We bring the authors of an exchange on ‘Quantitative Measurement of Ethnic and National Identity’ recently published in Nations and Nationalism together to discuss their writings – Daniel Bochsler, Elliott Green, Erin Jenne, Harris Mylonas, and Andreas Wimmer, with Tamara Pavasović Trošt as discussant. Join us on Facebook Live or YouTube Live – members will receive an invite to join on Zoom.
Abstract
In recent decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the use of quantitative techniques in the study of ethnicity and nationalism, without, however, a sufficient amount of reflection on how these techniques have contributed to our understanding of ethnic and national identities. As such, in this exchange three sets of authors answer questions about the degree to which it is possible to use quantitative data to measure ethnic and national identities, which types of methods are most suitable in measuring these identities and what the major research findings of this quantitative research are that were not possible using qualitative approaches.

Round Table on Nationalism and Crisis
2021-04-08 18:00 - 19:30 UTC | Online
Part of the 2021 ASEN Conference on Nationalism and Crisis.
1800UTC: Round Table with Lenka Buštíková, Judith Byfield, Dan Slater, and Miguel Centeno
Global perspectives on nationalism and crisis
1925UTC: Conference close
Join on Facebook Live or YouTube Live. Members and conference pass holders will receive emails to join on Zoom.
