Synopses & Reviews
Against the backdrop of ever-increasing nationalist violence during the last decade of the twentieth century, this book challenges standard analyses of nation formation by elaborating on the nations dream-like hold over the modern social imagination. The author argues that the national fantasy lies at the core of the Enlightenment imaginary, embodying its central paradox: the intertwining of anthropological universality with the primacy of a cultural ideal.
Crucial to the operation of this paradox and fundamental in its ambiguity is the figure of Greece, the universal alibi and cultural predicate behind national-cultural consolidation throughout colonialist Europe. The largely unpredictable institution of a modern Greek nation in 1830 undoes the interweaving of Enlightenment and Philhellenism, whose centrifugal strands continue to unravel the certainty of European history, down to the current internal predicaments of the European Community or the tragedy of the Balkan conflicts.
Review
This is an original and important study of nation formation as social imaginary . . . adopting insights from a variety of disciplines (literary criticism, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, philosophy, economics).”Vassilis Lambropolous, Ohio State University.
Synopsis
A new analysis of nation formation that elaborates on the role of social imagination in the formation of the modern state.
Synopsis
This book offers a new analysis of nation formation by elaborating on the nation's dream-like hold over the modern social imagination. The author argues that the national fantasy lies at the core of the Enlightenment legacy, embodying its central paradox: the intertwining of anthropological universality with the primacy of a cultural ideal. Crucial to the operation of this paradox is the figure of Greece, the universal alibi and cultural predicate behind national-cultural consolidation throughout colonialist Europe. Examining crucial periods in the formation of the modern Greek state, Dream Nation attempts to write the history of a nation by delving into the intangibles of the collective imagination.
Synopsis
Against the backdrop of ever-increasing nationalist violence during the last decade of the twentieth century, this book challenges standard analyses of nation formation by elaborating on the nations dreamlike hold over the modern social imagination.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [285]-298) and index.
About the Author
Stathis Gourgouris is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University.
Table of Contents
A note to readers; Prologue; 1. The nations's dream-work; 2. The formal imagination, I: The back roads of development from enlightenment to bureaucracy; 3. The formal imagination, II: Natural history and the national pedagogy - the case of Korais; 4. The punishment of philhellenism; 5. The phatasms of writing, I: Makriyiannis and the miracles of national memory; 6. The phatasms of writing, II: Nostalgia for Utopia - the idolatries of Seferis; 7. Homologia Apologia: the writing of national history; Works cited; Index.