The historical processes of state-led cultural homogenisation (1789–1915) has been a neglected area of investigation, even though practices of cultural homogenisation recurred throughout contemporary history, mostly under the umbrella of Westernising modernity.
The research takes place within the theoretical framework of ‘critical modernism’. Not to be confused with the homonymous post-modernist approach, I redefine ‘critical modernism’ as an interpretive grid to explore how legitimacy-seeking policy makers situated across the political spectrum make use of modernity-related concepts as ideological tools to build consensus while attempting to enforce various degrees of cultural homogeneity [9, 10]. In this research, modernism is conceived as an ideological matrix used by political elites and state bureaucracies to impose a normative framework on nearly every aspect of life. As I have argued, modernism and nationalism are twin ideologies and there is substantial agreement between scholars that the one is unconceivable without the other [1, 9-14]. Given modernism’s relationship with political legitimacy, this notion is particularly useful for the study of nationalism. The argument was elucidated earlier in a high-ranking article on political modernism as an ideology.
These interests have culminated in a proliferation of articles and book chapters centred on the relationship between culture and politics within the ideological framework of political modernism. A journal article [15] and a book chapter [16] further apply critical modernism to the relationship between anarchism, nationalism and the artistic Avant-garde, notably futurism, as well as (in a review article) to the relationship between nationalism and Decadentism during the Belle Époque [17].
More recently, the project has expanded beyond the visual arts by comparing the regional dimensions of musical nationalism in Spain and in Italy in one journal article [18] and two book chapters [19, 20]. These works look comparatively at how specific musical styles (canzone and flamenco) allowed national identities to manifest themselves at the local and regional level through music – and vice versa. Both are re-conceived within the interpretive dimension of critical modernism. This also serves to show how state-sanctioned cultural homogenisation campaigns have historically proved to be largely unsuccessful in political terms; the Italian and Spanish cases show how they can be opposed from within by various forces, and not only by sub-state nationalists and ethno-regionalist movements.
The historical processes of state-led cultural homogenisation (1789–1915) has been a neglected area of investigation, even though practices of cultural homogenisation recurred throughout contemporary history, mostly under the umbrella of Westernising modernity.
The research takes place within the theoretical framework of ‘critical modernism’. Not to be confused with the homonymous post-modernist approach, I redefine ‘critical modernism’ as an interpretive grid to explore how legitimacy-seeking policy makers situated across the political spectrum make use of modernity-related concepts as ideological tools to build consensus while attempting to enforce various degrees of cultural homogeneity [9, 10]. In this research, modernism is conceived as an ideological matrix used by political elites and state bureaucracies to impose a normative framework on nearly every aspect of life. As I have argued, modernism and nationalism are twin ideologies and there is substantial agreement between scholars that the one is unconceivable without the other [1, 9-14]. Given modernism’s relationship with political legitimacy, this notion is particularly useful for the study of nationalism. The argument was elucidated earlier in a high-ranking article on political modernism as an ideology.
These interests have culminated in a proliferation of articles and book chapters centred on the relationship between culture and politics within the ideological framework of political modernism. A journal article [15] and a book chapter [16] further apply critical modernism to the relationship between anarchism, nationalism and the artistic Avant-garde, notably futurism, as well as (in a review article) to the relationship between nationalism and Decadentism during the Belle Époque [17].
More recently, the project has expanded beyond the visual arts by comparing the regional dimensions of musical nationalism in Spain and in Italy in one journal article [18] and two book chapters [19, 20]. These works look comparatively at how specific musical styles (canzone and flamenco) allowed national identities to manifest themselves at the local and regional level through music – and vice versa. Both are re-conceived within the interpretive dimension of critical modernism. This also serves to show how state-sanctioned cultural homogenisation campaigns have historically proved to be largely unsuccessful in political terms; the Italian and Spanish cases show how they can be opposed from within by various forces, and not only by sub-state nationalists and ethno-regionalist movements.