Marco Denevi: An Argentine Anomaly

Hipotermia by the Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue was published in 2006. Even though it is considered an example of the most recent Latin American narrative, reflecting on the effects of globalization and neoliberalism in Mexico, the most evident effect of which is a blurring of the idea of nation, it has not been well acknowledged for depicting the incertitude of our days in a more social way. In this article I read Hipotermia as a novel where the Writer (as a social representation of the intellectual) deals with a creative block as a result of his anxiety regarding the traditional concept of an author in the boom period (1970s). The way he works through it consists in a fictional project about non-epic characters. As a result of this, the book creates a mosaic of voices that can be identified as experiences of the middle class in the context of a global society. I try to prove that the concept of “Global Class,” developed by Saskia Sassen, describes Enrigue’s conception of both the exile’s experience and the middle class’s subjectivity.     

Edna O'Brien and narrative diaspora space

Given the persistent presence of migration in the work of Edna O'Brien, it is surprising how marginal a theme it is in critiques of her work. This article explores how questions of diaspora have reached a renewed level of depth and intensity in her novel The Light of Evening (2006) and the related short story ‘My Two Mothers’ (2011). Looking, in particular, at how letters play a central role in the relationships of three generations of Irish women across three countries, it analyses how issues of mother(land), diaspora and belonging are mediated through migrant fiction. It draws on the work of Avtar Brah and Paul Ricoeur to argue that, along with related forms of textuality within O'Brien's oeuvre, letters represent a ‘narrative diaspora space’ which illuminates the relationship between mothers, daughters and writing in Irish migrant experience.     

Protestantism,nation and diaspora in Imperial Germany

This article examines the close connection between Protestantism and nationalism in Imperial Germany within a transnational context. In the years before 1914, the Prussian State Church in particular strengthened the legal and organisational framework for an increasing number of diaspora congregations to become attached. These acted as an important vehicle to embed the nationalist rhetoric produced within the Reich into emigrants' notions of belonging. Whilst previous scholarship has noted this connection in general, the article sheds more detailed light on the mechanics and structure, but also on the limits, of this process. Feedback processes from periphery to centre, in turn, had an impact on German national identity construction as that of a nation that was not confined to state borders. Applying a constructionist theoretical framework, the contested question of whether the heterogeneity of Germans abroad allows for the application of the diaspora concept is answered affirmatively.     

Between religion and nationalism in the Palestinian diaspora

This article examines Palestinian refugee articulations of the Palestinian homeland and struggle in relation to religion and nationalism. My contention is that the impact of Hamas's electoral victory in Palestine is visible within the discourse of Palestinians in Jordan. This discourse suggests a transformation of the meaning of Palestinian nationalism in which religion is taking an important albeit complex role in nationalism. Using the concept of intertwining, this article considers how Islam has been intertwined with Palestinian nationalism in ways that have privileged particular ideas about the national homeland and fight for liberation. While many suggest that Islamist politics is incompatible with nationalism, this article takes the local discourse of refugees and argues that Hamas and its supporters have yet to abandon the framework of nationalism, although certain tensions exist.     

Diaspora and nostalgia: travelling Jewish tales in the Mediterranean

The article addresses narratives that tell of a member of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel who comes to the rescue of a Jewish community. The tales were documented at the Israel Folktale Archives, in the second half of the twentieth century, and were told by informants from Morocco and Greece. While it is probably impossible to trace the exact routes of these “cultural possessions”, around and across the Mediterranean, the texts nevertheless provide a glimpse into the ways in which a network of Jewish communities shared a meta-narrative while adapting it to their own regional contexts. Although these tales are quintessentially diasporic, they also provided a platform for negotiating post-exilic identities in the new Israeli national context.     

Rationality and revolution

The article deals with the political thought of the young Spanish philosopher and intellectual, José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955). The main aim is to examine to what extent his political thought was articulated in a systematic manner, and to understand if it was meant to be practically implemented. Ortega's political thought has been described as liberal on the one hand, and anti-democratic and conservative on the other. The disparities regarding Ortega's politics usually arise from his declarations, which aimed to confront the changing social and political situation in Spain. To many researchers, these declarations seem incoherent, evolutionary, or ideas that can be directly deduced from the evolution of his philosophical theory. The extent to which Ortega's political theory was systematic will be understood through focusing on the role designed for the Spanish intellectuals in Ortega's declarations and works. Instead of considering his political thought in relation to either his philosophy or the political events and changing circumstances in Spain, I will attempt to examine how, during the years of his youth, his political declarations were always guided by a consistent feature with a practical political purpose: to challenge the Spanish intellectuals to promote social awareness of and reflection on the country's problems, and to consider potential solutions to these problems.     

Nationalism and nostalgia: the case of radical Basque nationalism*

Abstract. This article argues that the myth of the Golden Age is a key mobilising element within radical Basque nationalism. By using an ethno‐symbolist approach, this article argues that nostalgia, a catchword for looking back, usually relates to an idealised past. It then proceeds to explain how ETA in particular has domesticated the past to justify its political violence which is currently exalted as a means of honouring the fighting spirit of their ancestors. From this perspective, violence is presented as a redemptive act that can stop the decay of the Basque nation and bring a new political future in which the inspiring ancient virtues will be rediscovered. This nostalgic gaze upon the past continually ‘reminds’ radical Basque nationalists of an imaginary, yet familiar, past which can only be regained by using revolutionary violence.     

Iran and the revolution

Iran since the Revolution: Internal Dynamics, Regional Conflicts and the Superpowers. Edited by Barry M. Rosen. New York: Brooklyn College Studies on Society in Change, No. 47, Social Science Monographs, Boulder, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1985. 187 pp.

The State and Revolution in Iran, 1962–1982. By Hossein Bashiriyeh. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. 203 pp.

Islamic Iran: Revolution and Counter‐Revolution. By Asaf Hussain. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. 225 pp.     

Nativist-populism,the internet and the geopolitics of indigenous diaspora

The increasing influence of nativist-populism across Europe has provoked public and scholarly debate in recent years, to which political geographers are well placed to contribute. This article synthesises recent work on popular geopolitics and the geopolitics of diaspora to analyse the ways that the MAK-Anavad (the Kabyle government-in-exile) positions itself politically through both reactionary nativism and progressive indigenism. The politics of diaspora, indigeneity and nativism share some common discursive traits relating to territory and belonging, though their starting points and political effects are different. This article outlines and explains the ways the MAK-Anavad's discourse articulates with the nativist-populism of the French Right, arguing that this is possible because of its diasporic situation, colonial history, and a common discourse of anti-Islamism. Online social media, an important new field for the study of popular geopolitics, is argued to offer a key political opportunity structure for the MAK-Anavad and to privilege a populist communication style.     

Museums in revolution: changing national narratives in revolutionary Cuba between 1959 and 1990

This paper explores the function and role of museums in revolutionary Cuba between 1959 and 1990. Drawing on a variety of hitherto unexplored archives and interviews with bureaucrats of the Cuban heritage field, the paper argues that there is a close relation between museum production, the prevailing narration of nation, internal power struggles within the regime and the changing relation with the USSR. Museums were considered primary tools for historical production and politico-ideological socialisation. These were two fundamental issues for communist regimes, concerned with fixing cultural identity and affirming historical continuity. The paper focuses on the case of the Museum of the Revolution to argue that Cuban museums changed in conjunction with the increasing crypto-colonial relations of subordination to the USSR. In the first, humanist and Universalist phase, museums served to expand culture and spread a nationalist-revolutionary narrative of nation. The second period after 1975 witnessed the institutionalisation and Sovietisation of Cuban museums. This involved their transformation into a device to instil a nationwide homogeneous class-based Marxist–Leninist narrative adapted to Cuba from the Soviet model. This ideological closure of museum production contributed to the ideological and identity-building objectives of the regime.     

Idealisations of self and nation in the thought of diaspora intellectuals

ABSTRACT. Diaspora intellectuals have often played prominent roles in the formation of national revival and independence movements. This article explores the factors that may help to explain this phenomenon through a survey of the literary responses of intellectuals from Eastern Europe, colonial Africa and Asia to their experiences in the capital cities of Western Europe over the early modern and modern era. These reactions, expressed through the writings of influential figures such as Adamantios Koraes and Leopold Senghor, reveal, in their thematic convergence, aspects of such encounters that have remained consistent over time. Portrayed throughout are the emotional hardships of talented individuals who found their status suddenly conditioned by the ideas associated with their places of origin in the host society's imagination. Unwilling, for reasons explored below, to submit passively to these affronts, the individuals studied here threw their energies instead into ambitious projects of national re‐imagination and rehabilitation. The article makes use, finally, of the rather visceral quality of the literature surrounding the experience of diaspora intellectuals to account for the complex weave of modern and traditional elements often exhibited in the new idealisations of self and nation that appear throughout their works.