SPIN - Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms
SPIN aims to chart the cultural and historical root system of European nationalisms and to bring into focus those intellectual networks which carried and disseminated the emerging ideals of cultural nationalism in the Romantic period and in the long nineteenth century (1770-1914).
The dynamics on which SPIN will focus in particular are twofold:
- – transnational (thematizing exchanges between cultural nationalisms in different areas and societies within Europe); and
- – intermedial (thematizing transfers between different cultural fields, genres and media, from language revivalism to national opera and from folklore festivals to nineteenth-century medievalism in literature and the arts).
In order to pursue this agenda, SPIN will itself work on an international and interdisciplinary basis. Its main purpose is to gather into a network scholars in different European countries and in different disciplines, and to facilitate and focus cooperation between them.
Use the navigation bar to read more about SPIN’s aims and proposed activities, or click this link for a PDF brochure (4 pages, 300 kB).
Workshop Choral Societies and Nationalist Mobilization in the 19th Century
National movements in nineteenth-century Europe were carried to an important extent by convivial sociability and cultural interests. A good example is furnished by the rise and function of male choirs from ca. 1810 onwards. Starting from initial foundational centres such as Berlin and Zurich, they obtained rapid popularity, proliferated by inspiring new foundations in an increasing number of cities, then established contacts and federative structures by means of trans-local, regional or nationwide festivals. Most German-speaking cities had their Gesangverein or Liedertafel by 1840, and the formula developed in many other European countries as well. In some of them (e.g., Wales and Estonia) choirs and choral festivals became an important vehicle for the assertion of a separate national identity, carried by large demotic sections of the population.
In spite of its wide-spread popularity and socio-political importance in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Europe, remarkably little attention has been given to this phenomenon by either cultural historians or musicologists.
The workshop is jointly hosted by NISE and SPIN and will take place in Antwerp. The programme has been finalized, no more papers will be accepted, but interested auditors are invited to register: info@spinnet.eu.
Banknote database complete
The interactive database of national icon-figures on European banknotes is now complete. It can be accessed through the interactive resources portal or by clicking "Resources" > Banknotes in the main navigation bar.
Romantic Rhine Travels
On 21 and 22 October a workshop will be held initiating a thematic research group on the Rhine as a cultural space in romantic nationalism. The participants will discuss the testimonies of generations of travellers from different countries and from different ideological persuasions form Byron to Schlegel and from Arndt to Victor Hugo. A new multinational body of evidence will hence be given on the new investment of the Rhine with both cultural and political meanings.
Linguistic Revival Movements in Europe
On 3-4 June a workshop was held at the Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms in Amsterdam regarding language revivalism that emerged in Europe in the wake of Romantic Nationalism (1810-1880). Possibilities for establishing a research network were explored as well as means for applying for European funding. A comparative workshop will be organized in Maynooth (Ireland) next year.