ANTHR 6482

Perspectives on the Nation

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2017-2018.

This course will critically examine the key texts that have informed our understanding of the nation and nationalism. Beginning with some of the founding texts such as Hahn Kohn's "The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in its Origins and Backgrounds" (1994), Plamenatz's "Two Types of Nationalism" (1976), and Renan's "What is a Nation" (1939), we will then move on to more contemporary writings by Gellner, Hobsbawm and Anderson and end with alternate analytical approaches that have been informed by the "national question" in the "Third World" such as Partha Chatterjee's "Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World." A central theme will be how notions of culture, power, and history are implicated in constructions of "the Nation." We will also explore the possibilities of an ethnographic approach to the nation and ask if such an analytical/methodological move may help us better grapple with the perplexing emotive dimension of nationalisms. The intersection of gender and nation will also form a section of this course.

When Offered Spring.

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