ABSTRACT
The idea that the nation-state is a historically contingent if enduring institution is hardly a new one. When I use the term postnational, therefore, I both build on and depart from scholarship that has problematized the nation-state in various ways. It will also become clear in the course of this paper that the term postnational provides a way of escaping the limited swing between Empire and Nation that the term ‘postcolonial’ increasingly runs up against.1
