CSHS 516: Nations and Nationalism
KOÇ UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
SPRING 2009
Class Hours: W 9:30 am-12:15 pm (SOS B35)
Office Hours: W 2:00-3:30 pm, and by appointment
Instructor: Murat Ergin
Social Sciences 252
(212) 338-1411; muergin@ku.edu.tr
COURSE CONTENT AND PURPOSE
This is a survey course covering major theoretical, conceptual, and empirical debates in the
social scientific study of nationalism. The central goal is to equip students with the analytical
tools to be able to do independent research and an ability to link broader debates to concrete
case studies. Throughout the semester, we will study nationalism as a form of politics, a
discourse of cultural understanding, and a source of identity and group loyalty. Moreover, we
will explore the relationship between nationalism and modernity, state formation, the role of
various solidarities and divisions (e.g. race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality), and colonialism.
MATERIALS REQUIRED
A package containing required readings will be available to students.
COURSE ORGANIZATION AND REQUIREMENTS
In addition to responsibility for the required readings, students will assume a major
responsibility for seminar discussions. At the beginning of the semester, those students who
are responsible for the week’s discussion (discussion leaders) will be announced. Discussion
leaders will provide a brief introduction, identifying what they consider to be the central
issues and debates for the week. They are also responsible for linking the assigned readings to
current issues and debates in different settings. Writing assignments for this course are the
following: l) Each week during the semester, you will be responsible for writing up a reaction
paper, maximum three double-spaced pages in length, which contains your reflections on
readings for the week (see below). These papers should critically evaluate the central issues
raised in the required readings and may include discussion questions. Papers are due via email to all seminar participants on Monday by 5 pm, no exceptions will be made. You
have one free pass to skip this required exercise without any excuse. 2) Students are also
required to write a 15-20 page research paper and comments on a fellow student’s paper.
Grades will be based on reaction papers and class presentations (40%), participation and class
activities (10%) and the research paper and comments (50%). Since the class is focused on
discussion, attendance at all sessions is mandatory. To receive a grade of B+ or higher, you
must a) attend all seminar discussions or provide a legitimate justification for your absence, b)
be in class on time [please do not come in if you are more than five minutes late] and
participate in discussions, and c) provide written comments on a fellow student’s final
research paper.
Reaction Papers/Discussion Questions:
Select one or two issues/themes/problems/questions to orient your reaction paper. If you try to
deal with all of the points raised in the readings, this will probably lead to a paper that sets too
broad of an agenda. Remember, the purpose of your paper is to introduce a discussion and
provide an agenda that will facilitate a coherent and focused discussion, not to provide the
final word on a given issue or display your encyclopedic knowledge. Do not give a summary
1
of the readings unless it is absolutely necessary to refresh people's minds and orient the
discussion, but your paper/presentation should not contain long and elaborate recapitulations
of what the required readings say in detail. You should assume that everyone in the class has
read all of the required readings for the week.
The paper should be a mini-essay which helps you (and us) to organize our thoughts
and reflections on the key issues. It may take the form of an analysis of what is at stake in the
debates or it may entail comments/critiques of specific arguments in the required readings.
Focus the paper/discussion around the issues raised in the particular required readings for the
week.
Discussion Leaders:
Your task will be to introduce the discussion and set the agenda. I will monitor the seminar,
making sure that nobody dominates the discussion and that everyone has a chance to talk.
You have a responsibility to do the required readings for the week, to listen to what is
being said by other participants (rather than being overly preoccupied with what you are
going to say), and not to interrupt people in the middle of sentences. We hope to create a
setting in which everyone feels comfortable talking, even if they do not have something
brilliant or profound to say. It is as appropriate to ask for clarification of issues or previous
comments as it is to make a substantive point on the subject matter. No comment should be
regarded as "naive" or "stupid" as long as it reflects an attempt to seriously engage the material.
Research Paper:
This paper provides you with an opportunity to explore in greater depth debates about
nationalism and related concepts within a particular historical and social context. Your job is
to select a case and discuss the relevance, or irrelevance, of theories of nationalism,
citizenship, and race to this particular case. How does the distinctive history of nation
building, citizenship, and racial formation in this setting shed light on existing theoretical
debates? Your case study should link the central issues in these debates to empirical research.
In other words, do not turn in entirely theoretical or entirely empirical papers. The paper
(excluding the bibliography) should be l5-20 pages in length, double-spaced with reasonable
margins. You will be asked to present your research paper in class at the end of the semester.
You may want to think about some of the following questions while doing your
research, but these are only suggestions:
General Questions: What are the most relevant theoretical claims that can help us to
understand nationalism in this particular case? What evidence does this case bring to bear on
the major debates around nationalism? Does your case study suggest certain scope conditions
for these theories, i.e. certain temporal or geographic limits to the propositions put forth by
the theories?
Specific Questions: How has the rhetoric of the nation constructed boundaries, defined
sovereignty, and mobilized popular participation? Have wars, militarism, and acts of violence
been central to nation-building and the consolidation of national identity in this setting? How
did nationalism draw on, articulate with, and transform long-standing ethnic identities? What
aspects of culture define membership in the national community? How were art, music,
dance, and literature used to construct national identity? What historical narratives and
“invented traditions” were mobilized to foster national identification and how and when were
these constructed? Was resistance to colonial domination central to the construction of the
nation? What were the social bases of the nationalist movement? What different visions of the
nation were put forth and how were they contested? What role did elites, intellectuals, and
political entrepreneurs play in giving shape to and normalizing the meaning and significance
of nationalism? How have race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality helped to define the national
2
community? Has this modern nation-state transformed the nature of patriarchy from private to
public? How have state institutions (e.g. schools, the military, the courts, etc.) and activities
(map making, stamp making, census taking, immigration control, etc.) helped to construct
national identity? How have supra-national forces affected the sovereignty of this nationstate? How have birth, territory and residence been used to construct the boundaries of
inclusion/exclusion that define citizenship? How has this state differentiated among its
citizens, by restricting suffrage or military service, imposing qualifications for certain rights,
or recognizing different gradations of citizenship? How do citizenship laws and policies deal
with immigrants, diasporas, refugees, and displaced persons? Are there policies of minority
rights to accommodate the identities and needs of ethno-cultural groups? How have they
affected civic virtues and social cohesion? Have they politicized ethnicity, fostered group
divisions, and undermined mutual understanding and trust or promoted political dialogue and
civic equality by helping alienated minorities to identify with the larger political community
and integrate into a common citizenship? What racial categories have been used in social,
political, and cultural life and how have they changed over time? How did colonialism,
slavery, and miscegenation shape patterns of racial domination/subordination in this country?
What were the institutional legacies of colonialism for the formation of this nation-state? Was
the foundation of this nation-state a deeply racialized process? What role did race play in the
struggle for national independence or in this country’s colonial conquests? Were there
political contestations over race during the struggle for independence or in debates over early
citizenship legislation? Did nationalist practices invent, ignore, or dissolve racial boundaries?
How has the state established racial boundaries of citizenship and has that provoked
resistance? Was national inclusion contingent on racial sameness?
3
CLASS SCHEDULE AND ASSIGNED READINGS
Week 1 (Sept. 30): Introduction
Puri, Jyoti. Encountering Nationalism. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004 (read pp. 1-21).
Week 2 (Oct. 7): Concepts and Definitions
Stalin, Joseph. "The Nation." In Nationalism, edited by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, 1821. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Renan, Ernest. "What is a Nation?" In The Nationalism Reader, edited by Omar Dahbour and
Micheline R. Ishay, 143-55. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1995.
Deutsch, Karl W. "Nationalism and Social Communication." In Nationalism, edited by John
Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, 26-29. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Connor, Walker. "A Nation is a Nation, is a State, is an Ethnic Group, is a …." In Nationalism, edited
by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, 36-46. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press,
1994.
Brubaker, Rogers. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe.
Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996 (read pp. 13-22).
Calhoun, Craig J. Nationalism. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997 (read pp. 1-8).
Bhabha, Homi K. "Introduction: Narrating the Nation." In Nation and Narration, edited by
Homi K. Bhabha, 1-7. London; New York: Routledge, 1990.
Recommended:
Bhabha, Homi K. "DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation."
In Nation and narration, edited by Homi K. Bhabha, 291-322. London; New York:
Routledge, 1990.
Week 3 (Oct. 14): The Modernist Perspective and Its Critiques
Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1983 (read pp.1-62; 123-143).
Nairn, Tom. "The Maladies of Development." In Nationalism, edited by John Hutchinson and
Anthony D. Smith, 70-76. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Hechter, Michael, and Margaret Levi. "Ethno-Regional Movements in the West." In Nationalism,
edited by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, 184-95. Oxford; New York: Oxford University
Press, 1994.
Brass, Paul R. "Elite Competition and Nation-Formation." In Nationalism, edited by John Hutchinson
and Anthony D. Smith, 83-89. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Akman, Ayhan. "Modernist Nationalism: Statism and National Identity in Turkey."
Nationalities Papers 32, no. 1 (2004): 23-51.
Week 4 (Oct. 21): The Modernist Perspective and Its Critiques (cont.)
Smith, Anthony D. "The Origins of Nations." In Nationalism, edited by John Hutchinson and Anthony
D. Smith, 147-54. Oxford; New York, 1994.
The Warwick Debates, 1995 (Anthony Smith, “Opening Statement: Nations and their pasts” and
Ernest Gellner’s Reply “Do Nations have Navels?”).
4
Özkırımlı, Umut. "The Nation as an Artichoke? A Critique of Ethnosymbolist Interpretations of
Nationalism." Nations and Nationalism 9, no. 3 (2003): 339-55.
Smith, Anthony D. "The Poverty of Anti-nationalist Modernism." Nations and Nationalism 9, no. 3
(2003): 357-70.
İrem, Nazım. "Turkish Conservative Modernism: Birth of a Nationalist Quest for Cultural
Renewal." International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 1 (2002): 87-112.
Oct. 28: No class
Week 5 (Nov. 4): Nationalism, Modernity and the State
Calhoun, Craig J. Nationalism. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997 (read pp. 9-28; 66-85).
Puri, Jyoti. Encountering Nationalism. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004 (read pp. 22-71).
Breuilly, John. Nationalism and the State. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994 (read
pp.366-403).
Aytürk, İlker. "Turkish Linguists Against the West: The Origins of Linguistic Nationalism in
Atatürk's Turkey." Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 6 (2004): 1-25.
Week 6 (Nov. 11): Imagined Communities
Anderson, Benedict R. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
Revised ed. London; New York: Verso, 1991 (read pp. 1-46; 67-111; 155-162).
Bora, Tanıl. "Nationalist Discourses in Turkey." The South Atlantic Quarterly 102, no. 2/3
(2003): 433-51.
Week 7 (Nov. 18): Constructivist Approaches
Hobsbawm, Eric J., and Terence O. Ranger. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge [UK]; New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1983 (read pp.1-14; 262-283, 303-307).
Anderson, Benedict R. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
Revised ed. London; New York: Verso, 1991 (read pp. 163-185).
Calhoun, Craig J. Nationalism. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997 (read pp. 51-65).
Bora, Tanıl. "Türk Milliyetçiliğinin İnşasında Vatan İmgesi: Harita ve "Somut" Ülke." In
Milli Hâllerimiz, 21-34. Istanbul: Helsinki Yurttaşlar Derneği, 2008.
Week 8 (Nov. 25): Micro-analytical approaches
Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995 (read pp. 1-12; 37-59;
93-127).
Kentel, Ferhat, Meltem Ahıska, and Fırat Genç. "Milletin Bölünmez Bütünlüğü":
Demokratikleşme Sürecinde Parçalayan Milliyetçilik(ler). Istanbul: TESEV Yayınları, 2007
(read pp. 37-69).
Week 9 (Dec. 2): Nationalism and Social Solidarities/Divisions: Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality
Calhoun, Craig J. Nationalism. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997 (read pp. 29-50).
Hobsbawm, Eric J. "Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe Today." In Mapping the Nation, edited by
Gopal Balakrishnan, 255-66. New York; London: Verso, 1996.
5
Puri, Jyoti. Encountering Nationalism. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004 (read 107-169).
Walby, Sylvia. "Woman and Nation." In Mapping the Nation, edited by Gopal Balakrishnan, 235-54.
New York; London: Verso, 1996.
Anthias, Floya, and Nira Yuval-Davis. "Women and the Nation-State." In Nationalism, edited by John
Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, 312-16. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Yeğen, Mesut. "Citizenship and Ethnicity in Turkey." Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 6
(2004): 51-66.
Week 10 (Dec. 9): Nationalism, Colonialism, and the World System of Nation-States
 Outline and bibliography due.
Calhoun, Craig J. Nationalism. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997 (read pp. 104-122).
Puri, Jyoti. Encountering Nationalism. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004 (read pp. 72-106).
Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993 (read pp. 3-13).
Mamdani, Mahmood. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996 (read pp. 3-25).
Chatterjee, Partha. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse?
London, U.K.; Totowa, N.J.: Zed Books, 1986 (read pp. 36-53).
Week 11 (Dec. 16): Race and Nation
Manzo, Kathryn A. Creating Boundaries: The Politics of Race and Nation. Boulder, CO: L. Rienner,
1996 (read pp. 1-28; 219-228).
Balibar, Etienne. "Racism and Nationalism." In Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, edited by
Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, 37-67. London; New York: Verso, 1991.
Armstrong, Bruce. “Racialisation and Nationalist Ideology: The Japanese Case” International
Sociology 4(3): 329-343.
McClintock, Anne. ""No Longer in a Future Heaven": Nationalism, Gender, Race." In Becoming
National: A Reader, edited by Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, 260-84. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996.
Baer, Marc. "The Double Bind of Race and Religion: The Conversion of the Dönme to
Turkish Secular Nationalism." Comparative Studies in Society and History 46, no. 4 (2004):
682-708.
Week 12 (Dec. 23): The Future of Nationalisms and Multiculturalism
Katherine Verdery, “Whither ‘Nation’ and ‘Nationalism’? in Mapping the Nation, pp. 226-234.
Appaduari, Arjun. Modernity at Large. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996 (read pp.
158-177).
Smith, Anthony D. Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press,
1995 (read pp. 147-160).
6
Hartmann, Douglas, and Joseph Gerteis. "Dealing With Diversity: Mapping Multiculturalism
in Sociological Terms." Sociological Theory 23, no. 2 (2005): 218-40.
Saraçoğlu, Cenk. "'Exclusive Recognition': The New Dimensions of the Question of Ethnicity
and Nationalism in Turkey." Ethnic and Racial Studies 32, no. 4 (2009): 640-52.
Week 13 (Dec. 30): Transnationalism and Cosmopolitanism
Seigel, Micol. "Beyond Compare: Comparative Method After the Transnational Turn."
Radical History Review, no. 91 (2005): 62-90.
Khagram, Sanjeev, and Peggy Levitt. "Constructing Transnational Studies." In The
Transnational Studies Reader, edited by Sanjeev Khagram and Peggy Levitt, 1-18. New York
and London: Routledge, 2008.
Calhoun, Craig J. "Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism." Nations and Nationalism 14, no. 3
(2008): 427-48.
Robertson, Roland. "Social Theory, Cultural Relativity and the Problem of Globality." In
Culture, Globalization and the World System: Contemporary Conditions for the
Representation of Identity, edited by Anthony D. King, 69-90. New York: SUNY Press, 1991.
Week 14 (Jan. 6): Student Presentations
 Two copies of the research paper due.

Jan. 13: Comments due.
7