New Nationalisms: Sources, Agendas, Languages
Date of the seminar: September 25-27, 2017, Wrocław, Poland
The conference sought to confront the discourse of affective mobilisation propagating anti-EU and anti-immigration policies in many European countries, with its opponent, i.e. the discourse of civic ethos and cosmopolitanism. How did it happen that xenophobia and anti-European sentiment have become a vocal presence in public discourse? We wanted the conference to shed some light on how a refurbished nationalism has become central to the new visions of what has become a functioning oxymoron in Central Europe: the non-liberal democracy.
Watch online:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/P_1E60wS00U
https://www.youtube.com/embed/pRRk2kDW-Ac
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7QFyCArL0Kw
https://www.youtube.com/embed/H-lYfrxmPis
The conference sought to confront the discourse of affective mobilisation propagating anti-EU and anti-immigration policies in many European countries, with its opponent, i.e. the discourse of civic ethos and cosmopolitanism. How did it happen that xenophobia and anti-European sentiment have become a vocal presence in public discourse? We wanted the conference to shed some light on how a refurbished nationalism has become central to the new visions of what has become a functioning oxymoron in Central Europe: the non-liberal democracy.
THE SEMINAR LANGUAGE was English.
FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS: The organisers covered the conference fee and the costs of accommodation (up to 4 nights), as well as travel (up to a certain maximum: Western Europe – up to 100 EUR; Central and Eastern Europe – up to 150 EUR) and insurance expenses.
All correspondence was handled by Katarzyna Majkowska (majkowska@acadeuro.wroclaw.pl).
The historical perspective seeks to answer the questions about how the new nationalisms build on the past, asking questions such as:
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- How do they use the past to build a new model of national identity as part of a strictly defined and exclusionary ethnos?
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- How do they formulate the concept of a historically rooted national subject?
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- What historical narratives do they turn into (new) national myths?
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- What historiographic models and historical research can be deployed to challenge the appropriation of history by nationalist politics?
Chantal Mouffe claims in her Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (2013) that the European transnational integrative project was based on the discourse of rationalisation and individualism, thus it positioned national loyalties in the space of a lingering past and premodern tribal affect. The social sciences perspective could tackle this division and put it into a more multi-dimensional perspective, such as:
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- The division into the EU “integrative project” and its opponent, “national loyalties” may inadvertently empower ethnic/exclusionary nationalism as the only viable politics for fostering national identities;
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- How does mass migration influence the sense of identity, locatedness, and belonging? How does it happen that migrants are often lured into nationalist sentiments?
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- How do contemporary mediascapes, including social media, influence identity formations and give individuals a sense of political agency?
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- In what sense is post-communist nostalgia a factor in attracting supporters of nationalist sentiment?
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- In what sense does the current turn to nationalism look like a haunted revolution? What prior appeals to the will of the sovereign as the supreme political agency does it echo?
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- In majoritarian discourse – the one that claims legitimacy, on the basis of representing the majority – national identity may turn into what Arjun Appadurai calls “predatory identities”. What are the mechanisms that trigger this transformation?
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- How does nationalist discourse react to the emergence of new nations (Silesians, for example), and how are national identities constructed beyond the reach of nationalism?
The linguistic perspective invites a reflection on the formation, alliances and porousness of discourses, an investigation of imaginaries and conceptualisations of belonging in culture, the affect in language and politics, the language of dichotomous divisions vs. the language of linking, etc. The questions to cover would be, among others:
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- How and in what circumstances are the languages of emergency, nationalist discourse being one of them, constructed and deployed?
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- How are the enemies created (named) and contained? How does it happen that in nationalist discourse the excluded margins are becoming ever broader?
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- How is the stereotyping language of nationalist othering neutralised into seemingly acceptable euphemisms (e.g. refugee becomes migrant; xenophobia becomes “modern patriotism”)?
The conference, held in Wrocław, Poland, September 25-27, 2017, was a joint initiative organised by the European Academy of Science/Academia Europaea (Wrocław Knowledge Hub), and the Faculty of Philology of the University of Wrocław, as part of which a selection of papers was published. The conference was part of a series of symposia that bring together prominent scholars as well as early career researchers, particularly from Central and Eastern Europe.
Registration
Welcome Addresses
- Chair: Prof. Siegfried Huigen (University of Wrocław & Academia Europaea)
- Dean Prof. Marcin Cieński (University of Wrocław)
- Prof. Tadeusz Luty (Academia Europaea Wrocław Knowledge Hub)
- Dorota Kołodziejczyk, PhD (University of Wrocław)
Keynote
Chair: Hana Cervinkova
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09:30 – 10:00 am Thomas Hylland Eriksen (University of Oslo)
Fake News and Polarised Identities: The Struggle over Truth in an Overheated World
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10:00 – 10:15 am Discussion
Coffee break
Session 1 | New Nationalisms in (New) Media
Session Chair: Viacheslav Morozov
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10:45 – 11:00 am Arthur Depner & Simon Goebel (Tür an Tür gGmbH, Augsburg)
Every Second Counts! Comedy between Subversive Action and National Conformity
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11:00–11:15 Jan Kajfosz (University of Silesia, Katowice)
Neoliberalism, the Rise of New Media Folklore and the Emergence of New Nationalisms
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11:15 – 11:30 am Robert Pyrah (Oxford University)
Virtual New Nationalisms: Comparative Public Uses of (20th Century) History on Selected Polish and German Websites
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11:30 – 11:45 am Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru (Bucharest University)
Rhetorics of New Nationalism: The “Colectiv Revolution” in the Romanian Media
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11:45 – 12:25 Discussion
Lunch break | Bazylia Bar, Kuźnicza 42, Wrocław
Session 2 | Nationalism in the Symbolic Sphere
Session Chair: Deborah Michaels
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01:45 – 02:00 pm Tamara Petrović Trifunović (University of Belgrade)
Symbolic Struggles in Serbian Public Discourse: Between (and Beyond) Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism
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02:00 – 02:15 pm Zbigniew Jazienicki (Warsaw University)
The Hanging, Negativity, and the National Spirit. The Political Theology of Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz
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02:15–02:30 pm Hana Cervinkova (Lower Silesian University, Wrocław)
The Nation and the Phantomic Other. Producing Citizenship in the Polish School Curriculum.
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02:30 pm – 03:00 pm Discussion
Tea break
Keynote
Chair: Pieter Emmer (Leiden University)
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03:20 – 03:50 Miroslav Hroch (Charles University, Prague)
Nations as Social Groups or as Abstract Communities of Cultural Values?
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03:50 – 04:05 Discussion
Welcome Dinner | Przystań Restaurant, Księcia Witolda 2, Wrocław
Keynote
Chair: Siegfried Huigen
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9:o0 – 9:30 am Uwe Backes (Hannah Arendt Institute, Technical University of Dresden)
Opposite Nationalisms in Europe
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9:30 – 9:45 am Discussion
Session 3 | Populism and Democratic Institutions
Session Chair: Bogdan Ștefănescu
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9:45 – 10:00 am Raul Cârstocea (European Centre for Minority Issues, Flensburg)
The Boundaries of “the People”: Populist Elements in the Ideology and Practices of the Legionary Movement in Interwar Romania
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10:00 – 10:15 am Diego Han (Center for Historical Research, Rovinj)
The Relativisation of the Fascist NDH in the Contemporary Croatian Nationalism
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10:15 – 10:30 am Uroš Ćemalović (University “John Naisbitt”, Belgrade)
The Role of the Membership in the European Union and of its Legal System in the Prevention of Nationalistic Discourse – the Case of the Western Balkans
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10:30 – 11:00 am Discussion
Coffee break
Session 4 | Rooting New Nationalism
Session Chair: Uwe Backes
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11:30 – 11:45 am Adam Mrozowicki & Justyna Kajta (University of Wrocław)
Labour and Nationalism in Poland: Exploring the (Missing) Links
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11:45 am – 12:00 noon Deborah Michaels (Grinnell College)
A Comparison of Nationalist Narratives in Slovak History Textbooks (1910-1995) and Political Rhetoric (2014-2017)
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12:00 – 12:20 pm Discussion
Lunch break | Bazylia Bar, Kuźnicza 42, Wrocław
Keynote
Chair: Dorota Kołodziejczyk
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01:45 – 02:15 pm Przemysław Czapliński (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)
On the Origins of Post-Enlightenment Nations
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02:15 – 02:30 Discussion
Session 5 | New Nationalism: Language and Rhetoric
Session Chair: Helge Wendt
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02:30 – 02:45 pm Marharyta Fabrykant (Belarusian State University, Minsk)
Russian-Speaking Belarusian Nationalism: Footing the Bill of a “Costly Signal”
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02:45 – 03:00 pm Barbara Pabjan (University of Wrocław)
The Language and Socio-Cognitive Structures in Nationalistic Discourse. An Empirical Study.
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03:00 pm – 03:15 pm Sylva Reznik (Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague)
Migrant Languages in Czechia and Poland: Legal Dichotomies
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03:15 – 03:45 pm Discussion
Tea break
Guided tour
Keynote
Chair: Hana Cervinkova
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10:00 – 10:30 am Viacheslav Morozov (University of Tartu)
New Nationalisms and Identity Politics: Minorities, Majorities, and Universal Emancipation
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10:30 – 10:45 am Discussion
Coffee break
Session 6 | Comparative Nationalisms: Scenarios and Alternatives
Session Chair: Pieter Emmer
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11:05 – 11:20 am Peer Scheepers (Radboud University, Nijmegen)
Changes in Nationalism Among Citizens of Western and Eastern European Countries? Empirical Findings from a Longitudinal and Cross-National Perspective
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11:20 – 11:35 am Helge Wendt (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin)
Why “Métissage” is the Better (Non-)National Myth?
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11:35 – 11:50 am Louis Wierenga (University of Tartu)
Russians, Refugees, and Europeans: What Shapes the Ideology of the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia?
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11:50 am – 12:20 pm Discussion
Lunch break | Bazylia Bar, Kuźnicza 42, Wrocław
Session 7 | Memory Work: Boosting or Checking Nationalism?
Session Chair: Bogdan Ștefănescu
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01:45 – 02:00 pm Łucja Piekarska Duraj (Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
Is Gdańsk Worth Dying for?
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02:00 – 02:15 pm Agnieszka Sadecka (Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
Black Memory, White Present – Strategic Remembering and Forgetting in Contemporary Nationalist Discourses in Poland, as Illustrated in Marcin Kącki’s Białystok (2015)
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02:15 – 02:35 Discussion
Keynote
Chair: Dorota Kołodziejczyk
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02:35 – 03:05 pm Bogdan Ștefănescu (Bucharest University)
The People versus the People. On “Nationalism”, “Populism”, and Other Academic Myths – a Few Distinctions and a Case Study.
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03:05 – 03:20 pm Discussion