Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation

What kinds of intellectual practices influence the making and remaking of nations? When are intellectuals most and least relevant to developing the nation? How do liberal, socialist, and nationalist intellectuals shape national ideologies? One of the principal debates in the study of nations concerns the relative significance of elites, specifically intellectuals. Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation delimits both the role of intellectuals in shaping nations and the impact that the development of nations has on shaping intellectual practices.

Contributors from anthropology, history, literature, political science, and sociology explore the capacities and limits of intellectuals in the formation and restructuring of national identities, in general and in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in particular. Following each essay is a brief intellectual autobiography in which the author's own relationship to nations is explored. The volume concludes with a general theory of national intellectual practice.

Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation will be a key resource for students and scholars of history, cultural studies, political science, anthropology, and sociology.

Ronald Grigor Suny is Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago.

Michael D. Kennedy is Vice Provost for International Affairs, Director of the International Institute, and Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan.