On a Road to Nowhere? Nationalism and Multiculturalism in a Diverse World

PhD Course with John Breuilly, Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Umut Özkirimli

What is the relationship between national history and the history of nationalism? Is it possible to detach the history of nationalism from that of the nation-state? How ‘global’ is nationalism, and does nationalism still matter? Can we talk about the ‘death of multiculturalism’? Are we living in an age of diversity? How can we conceptualize the dialectic between similarity and difference, and how can we cope with (increasing?) diversity? Where and how do immigration and Islam come into the picture? Straddling the line between the historical and the contemporary and making a case for the importance of comparative approaches, this course will cast a critical eye over these and many other questions and explore the intimate relation between nationalism and multiculturalism in today’s ‘omniphobic’ world.

Lecturers

John Breuilly (Professor of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the London School of Economics and Political Science). Editor of The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism (forthcoming, 2013) and currently writing a global history of nationalism for Oxford University Press.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oslo). Author of Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (3rd, 2010) and Small Places, Large Issues (3rd edn, 2010). Recent publications include ‘Xenophobic Exclusion and the New Right in Norway’, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology (2012).

Umut Özkirimli (Professor of Contemporary Turkey Studies at CMES, Lund University, and Honorary Professor at CEMES, University of Copenhagen). Author of Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (2nd edn, 2010; 3rd edn, forthcoming 2013) and Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey (with Spyros A. Sofos, 2008).

Requirements:

Mandatory readings and active participation in seminar discussions. Participants are further encouraged to present some of their work in the seminar (10-15 pages essays and 15 minutes oral presentations are expected)

ECTS:

3 ECTS for preparation and participation with paper presentation and 1.5 ECTS for preparation and participation.

Deadline

- for submission of applications (letter of motivation, CV and paper/PhD abstract) is 26 October 2012 to oluf@hum.ku.dk

Further information:

https://phdcourses.dk/Course/6014

Course organized by Catharina Raudvere (CuRe) & Umut Özkirimli (CEMES)