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Imagining the Nation

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
  • Convenor: Dr Nathalie Wourm
  • Assessment: a 5000-word essay (100%)

Module description

In this module we encourage you to reflect on the category of the nation as a paramount framework for the study of culture by looking at the histories and situated conceptualisations of the term national culture (national literature, national cinema, etc), and critiques thereof, prior to embarking on the study of a range of specific case studies. By providing a solid grounding in the understanding of the Western European traditions and subsequent critiques of the national paradigm, this module prepares you for a complex understanding of the intersection of nation with cultural forms, institutions and practices.

A first, core part of the module (in Weeks 1-5) brings together theoretical and literary texts to interrogate key paradigms. The second part (in Weeks 7-11) divides into different strands in the first and second half of the evening, exploring different case studies (focusing on specific cultures and/or a comparison between them).

Indicative syllabus

Part 1

This section explores the theoretical work of Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities), Partha Chatterjee (The Nation and its Fragments), Dipesh Chakrabarty (Provincializing Europe), Édouard Glissant (Treatise on the Whole-World) and Malcolm Ferdinand (Decolonial Ecology) alongside fictional works such as Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines and Fatou Diome’s The Belly of the Atlantic, to reflect on the contested notions of nation, community and identity.

Part 2

Strand 1: France and America

This strand examines French attitudes towards, and political and intellectual responses to, America. It begins with the shared democratic foundations, mutual admiration and rich cross-fertilisation of ideas between the two nations in the late eighteenth century and ends with the more prevalent and antagonistic climate of French anti-Americanism in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These themes and perspectives are examined through a comparative lens, comprising works of political philosophy, Romantic literature and social realist fiction.

  • Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-40)
  • Bernard-Henri Lévy, American Vertigo (2006)
  • François-René de Chateaubriand, Atala (1801)
  • Louis-Ferdinand de Céline, Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Strand 2: Comparative Studies

The focus of this strand is to examine, through looking at literary and filmic narratives from various cultures, the problematic of what ‘nation’ means - in other words, to destabilise the notion of nation. The topics vary year by year depending on the interests of incoming students and availability of academic staff, but will include a focus on Japanese, Italian and Spanish cultures.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • demonstrate in-depth critical knowledge of the categories associated with national culture (national literature, national cinema, etc), as well as understanding the historical formation and European roots of the category of the nation, and the meanings of its contemporary critiques in cultural realms
  • demonstrate awareness of a variety of critical approaches to the study of national cultures, and how by choosing an approach, critics condition their object of study and their interpretation and placement within cultural histories
  • analyse and critically assess some of the dominant themes, salient authors and cultural objects within each strand and cultural tradition
  • demonstrate skills in close textual analysis
  • show critical awareness of the meanings and functions of cultural production within the social and cultural contexts of their production and reception
  • engage with complex cultural criticism material.