{"id":2612,"date":"2022-03-14T17:53:03","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T17:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/?p=2612"},"modified":"2022-03-14T17:53:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T17:53:05","slug":"intertwining-ideas-from-essay-and-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/2022\/03\/14\/intertwining-ideas-from-essay-and-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Intertwining ideas from Essay and Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As we approach our methodological essay\u2019s deadline, I am becoming more and more grateful that I chose subject matter a bit more specific to my project topic. I considered for a good bit whether to focus on something more basic, such as the differences between transnational history and comparative history – while this essay would have yielded some interesting points about the two distinctions, I am unsure of how pertinent this information would be to my project. By focusing on methodological issues that accompany the problematic (at times) concept of \u2018nation\u2019, I am engaging with more case study examples of nations outside Eastern Europe. The subject of French nationalism and \u2018nation\u2019 has always appeared to be a daunting path to go down as there is such a wide and rich range of literature and discourse on the matter. I am familiar with some of the basic tenets of the French model of nationalism but have thoroughly enjoyed exploring more – I do not know why I should be so shocked as I love watching Les Miserables just as much as everyone else. I digress – Exploring the relationship between the emergence of nationalism in France, largely as a result of the French Revolution, and the rise of Enlightenment ideals and philosophers has been quite useful in my research regarding postmodernism and conceptions of nation. Focusing on the issues <\/em>of the \u2018nation\u2019 as a unit of analysis has tied in nicely with broader issues emphasized by postmodernist ideas; exploring what constitutes the character of a given nation while questioning the hierarchy of these views has tied in some of the key ideas of philosopher-historians such as Foucault and Lyotard – in particular, their views on power structures and metanarratives, respectively. Avoiding a too philosophical focus has proven to be a bit difficult considering its relevance to my current project and also how convoluted the language of some of the articles and books on these more theoretical topics. Although, I have found that focusing on the emergence of the concept of the nation as a unit of analysis has helped to uncover some of the anachronistic tendencies and oversimplifications of how even newer subsets of historical disciplines are being conducted today.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In regards to my project, I have struggled navigating the online platforms for primary Ukrainian and Belarusian sources. I have even encountered some Russian online sources being blocked by WiFi or just being completely shut down due to the current Ukrainian-Russian conflict. Sources on nationhood and nationalism have been easier to narrow down; I am currently reading Benedict Anderson\u2019s Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism <\/em>(1983) to get a better grasp of how nationalism is disseminated. My flatmate is currently writing a paper on Chinese nationalism and recommended it to me. I am trying to be more conscientious about the authorship of these histories of nationalism but I have found a lot of the scholarship to be based on American education institutions. I think focusing on different realms of nationalism and nation outside of Europe might help to aid this issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we approach our methodological essay\u2019s deadline, I am becoming more and more grateful that I chose subject matter a bit more specific to my project topic. I considered for a good bit whether to focus on something more basic,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-G8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2613,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612\/revisions\/2613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}