Community, Identity, Individuals: Shaping the (Political) Nation in Premodern Europe (400-1800)

According to the dominant understanding, the nation is a product of modernity
(the industrial revolution, capitalism, linguistic unification, printing press generalization and
democratization of schooling, etc.). However, nations did not appear ex nihilo in the 18th century. Traditional attempts to explain its emergence do not satisfy, as they focus only on the moment when the nation became the hegemonic mode of political organization during the 19th century. In doing so, they fail to describe the long process that led to this hegemony. This conference will reassess the definition and the genealogy of the nation.