In 1990, Julia Kristeva published the book of essays Nations without Nationalism, where she declared her vision of nations as spaces for cultural difference, but without the exclusion and hatred characteristic for nationalisms of the past. Now, we see the opposite happening: the rise of a variety of nationalisms that do not need to develop nations as a positive cultural project. The talk will address the question what—if anything—we can learn about contemporary European and Northern American nationalisms through a dialogue with classical theories of nationalism.
The presentation will concentrate on four questions: Has the nation as a constructive cultural project been replaced by a mostly negative delimitation against a globalist liberal civilization and the “decline of the West”? What happens with promises of “sovereignty” and “democracy” that nationalist movements declare to restore? Can the nation still work as a coping mechanism for accepting inequalities? Finally, what role does industry play in the imaginaries and practices of contemporary nationalists?
Ondřej Slačálek works as an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, at Charles University in Prague and is a member of the editorial group of the journal Kontradikce. He edited the volumes Central European Culture Wars: Beyond Post-Communism and Populism (with Pavel Barša and Zora Hesová, 2021) and The Political Economy of Eastern Europe 30 Years into the “Transition” (with Ágnes Gagyi, 2022).
Ivan Vejvoda, IWM Permanent Fellow, will moderate the discussion.
