History 297DN - ST- Diasporic Nationalism

Over the past two centuries, nation-states have regulated the global geography to units of belonging and have been commonly accepted as significant definers of collective identities. Today, the status of the nation-state is overwhelmingly strong to the degree that it is difficult to imagine alternative political structures or competing mechanisms in the shaping of identities. In this course, we will examine the reasons for the rise of the nation-state and the significance of national territory in shaping social bonds and symbolic orders. We will learn about historical attempts to present compelling alternatives to the nation-state of trans-national networks of solidarity and non-territorial national movements. We will examine how diasporic societies -like Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and Armenian communities in Latin America - created cultural enclaves with a degree of political autonomy and how these autonomies - like communities of Kurdish returnees - have induced social change in the national territory. We will then question if models of diasporic cultural autonomies can offer a viable alternative to the nation-state in the 21st century.