Presidential Plenary: Rising Ethnonationalism – The Politics of Purity in a World of Difference

Join past AAG president David H. Kaplan for this special plenary panel on Resurgent Ethnonationalism: The Politics of Purity in a World of Difference. A panel of engaged public scholars will discuss ethnonationalism around the world, describing and analyzing new political movements that are based around more exclusive forms of national identity.

Panelists will consider how ethnonationalism manifests itself in different societies, and whether it can coexist with civil society and cultural diversity. Drawing points of comparison and contrast among ethnonationalist movements, the panelists will examine how ethnonationalism is expressed in attitudes and policies, and the future of this trend. This timely topic will also be represented by numerous sessions at the annual meeting under the theme of Ethnonationalism and Exclusion.

Introducer and Moderator:

David H. Kaplan, Kent State University, followed by a roundtable discussion among all the panelists. Audience participation will be welcomed at the end of the plenary.

Panelists:

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Professor of Sociology and Education at American University. Author of Blood and Culture: Youth, Right-Wing Extremism, and National Belonging in Contemporary Germany (Duke University Press), and Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right (Princeton University Press).

Andreas Wimmer, Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Author of several books, including Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Powers, Networks (Oxford University Press); and Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While Others Fall Apart (Princeton University Press).

Samuel Goldman, Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University and executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom. Author of God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press).

Caroline Nagel, Professor of Geography at University of South Carolina. She has written extensively on immigration, transnationalism, multiculturalism and Islamophobia, publishing in Space and Polity, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.