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Genevi¿ Zubrzycki is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia at the University of Michigan.
List of contents
Matter and Meaning: A Cultural Sociology of Nationalism
—Geneviève Zubrzycki
1. Artisans and the Construction of the French State: The Political Role of the Louvre's Workshops
—Chandra Mukerji
2. In, On, and Of the Inviolable Soil: Pottery Fragments and the Materiality of Italian Nationhood
—Fiona Greenland
3. Raw Materials: Natural Resources, Technological Discourse, and the Making of Canadian Nationalism
—Melissa Aronczyk
4. Simultaneously Worlds Apart: Placing National Diversity on Display at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts
—Peggy Levitt
5. A Brief History of Sweat: Inscribing "National Feeling" on and through a Football Jersey
—Claudio E. Benzecry
6. That Banal Object of Nationalism: "Old Stones" as French Heritage in the Early Days of Public Television
—Alexandra Kowalski
7. The Mythical Power of Everyday Objects: The Material Culture of Radical Nationalism in Postsocialist Hungary
—Virág Molnár
8. Engaging Objects: A Phenomenology of the Tea Ceremony and Japaneseness
—Kristin Surak
9. Traces and Steps: Expanding Polishness through a Jewish Sensorium?
—Geneviève Zubrzycki
10. A Temple of Social Hope? Tempelhof Airport in Berlin and Its Transformation
—Dominik Bartmäski
About the author
Geneviève Zubrzycki is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia at the University of Michigan.
Summary
National Matters investigates the role of material culture and materiality in defining and solidifying national identity in everyday practice. Examining a range of "things"—from art objects, clay fragments, and broken stones to clothing, food, and urban green space—the contributors to this volume explore the importance of matter in making the nation appear real, close, and important to its citizens. Symbols and material objects do not just reflect the national visions deployed by elites and consumed by the masses, but are themselves important factors in the production of national ideals.
Through a series of theoretically grounded and empirically rich case studies, this volume analyzes three key aspects of materiality and nationalism: the relationship between objects and national institutions, the way commonplace objects can shape a national ethos, and the everyday practices that allow individuals to enact and embody the nation. In giving attention to the agency of things and the capacities they afford or foreclose, these cases also challenge the methodological orthodoxies of cultural sociology. Taken together, these essays highlight how the "material turn" in the social sciences pushes conventional understanding of state and nation-making processes in new directions.
Additional text
"Geneviève Zubrzycki has brought together an original collection of essays laden with fresh insights. Attending to the concrete experiences that sustain large-scale political identities, National Matters brings the new materiality to bear on nationalism in order to shed light on a subject of perennial significance."
