Monday, January 26, 2026 at 11:50 AM until Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 1:10 PMEastern Standard Time UTC -05:00
Bard College
In humanities it could be distinguished two approaches to the analysis of the phenomenon of nation and nationalism – primordialism and modernism. For modernists a nation is a territorial political community, a civil association of legally equal citizens in a specific territory. A nation is a relatively modern phenomenon that begins to form under the influence of the ideas of the French Revolution, although it could rely on the existence of certain "proto-national" connections. For modernists the nation is a created phenomenon. It is consciously and thoughtfully "built" by its members, primarily by elites who seek to influence the emotions of the masses in order to achieve their political goals. The formation of a nation is impossible without the transformation of the state and profound changes in the institutions of political power. This course is devoted to the mechanisms for the formation of such a type of modern society as nation, as well as the discussions about its construction. During this course we will examine the key theories representing various approaches of modernism (political, socio-economic, and postcolonial modernism, constructivism, gender study etс.), as well as criticism of the modernistic concept of the nation.
