Denise Nijhuis, Miranda Myrberg, Wietske Nijman, Inga Popovaite, and Dora Vajai decided to take their interest beyond the classroom, launching the Nationalism Studies blog at http://nationalismstudiesnetwork.wordpress.com/. The blog is a vibrant collection of the latest articles, books, videos, calls for papers, and scholarship or fellowship opportunities in the field. Recent posts include a news item about the failure of talks to achieve an agreement on the status of Serb-dominated northern Kosovo and to a video of a lecture by a prominent UCLA scholar on the politics of difference.
“We wanted to take it beyond academics,” said Denise Nijhuis, aninitiator of the blog and one of its editors. “Nationalism is such a broad field, we wanted a place where we could access all kinds of relevant information.”
Anyone can submit items for the blog by email at nationalismstudiesnetwork@gmail.com. Once received, the items are selected by the five editors and labeled by type of content to enable searches. Each post is also tagged with keywords—such as citizenship, immigration, populism, and ethnicity—so readers can see a selection of posts in their area of interest. Szabolcs Pogonyi, assistant professor in the Nationalism Studies Program, supervises the project.
When she isn’t blogging, Nijhuis is writing her M.A. thesis on “nation-branding” in Andalusia, which is trying to rebuild its regional identity in preparation for demanding more autonomy, such as that enjoyed by Catalonia. Nijhuis, a native of the Netherlands, hopes to work for the Dutch government on immigration issues after she graduates this spring.
About her experience at CEU, she says, “I’ve gotten so much from the people in my department – so many different backgrounds, both cultural and academic. It has helped me develop as a person and as an academic.”
