About the Blog

This blog is part of a larger project exploring nationalisms. Nationalism here is conceived of as both an extraordinary and ordinary phenomenon. First, rather than invoking the often static conceptual framework of “culture”, we will look at artifacts and ideas that articulate larger notions of a “culture”. Articulations, in this sense, are those pieces that motivate a larger narrative or discursive formation. In this process we can deconstruct some of what goes into claims about who people are or who people think they are. For example, we might take up the ways in which the United States flag is displayed during a newscast, the use of American folk art in a private home, or the various ways the 2nd Amendment is taken up in political claims. Second, we are interested in understanding nationalism as a process that is taken up in a broad array of discursive acts and disseminated across a range of public communication. Nationalism here is the logical by product of static frameworks of culture. So, in this blog we will present readers with examples of what we consider to be sentiments of nationalism and contextualize these sentiments within understandings about their attendant cultural frameworks. A necessary component to this exploration includes the analysis of affect (emotion) as it is circulated in these discursive acts. Affect is a crucial aspect of nationalism as it is the “feeling” of attachment to a place that nationalism depends on beyond other historical claims.

In exploring nationalism, most especially American nationalism, I will have students assist me in gathering and analyzing data and adding to this blog. This work will bring richness to my own studies in the area of nationalism and identity, but more importantly will allow for a diversity of voices to be heard and a more eclectic approach to the search for the relevant articulations of nationalism. In addition this blog will provide an extension of the classroom experience in a way that holds the public education students are receiving accountable to their public. It is important for a larger audience to see that students are taking up important conversations about who they are, the world they live in, and how they see themselves in that world. Education is beyond learning facts and figures but is about critical engagement with our communities. Education is about creating an atmosphere where intellectual and personal growth is encouraged. Democracies in particular are dependent on this kind of commitment.

About Me

I am a graduate student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego studying immigration, cultural memory and nationalism in Switzerland. My methodological approach is rooted in critical discourse analysis (CDA) and rhetorical analysis. I employ both ethnography and auto-ethnography in obtaining my artifacts of analysis and gathering data. My work follows up on the neo-Marxist tradition of taking into account relationships of power when thinking about political and social structures, as well as incorporating Foucault’s approach through embodiment. Some of my work includes: analysis of warplane nose art as folk art and resistance, analysis of Inez Milholland’s image as necessary symbolism in the in the progression of the first wave women’s rights movement, rhetorical analysis of the “pre-genocide” rhetoric in Rwanda and critical analysis of the deployment of Volk artifacts through the fetishization of “Volk” in Switzerland, to name a few. Along with academic work on immigration and nationalism, I am interested in identity politics, nomadic communities, memory and affect. I also maintain a blog on teaching at teachinginsideout@blogspot.com. You can contact me at babush @ucsd.edu.