ABSTRACT
In the opening pages of Nations Without Nationalism (1993), psychoanalyst and critic Julia Kristeva declares some issues to be so important as to merit discussion in the clearest possible terms. Academic conventions, she suggests, can unnecessarily compound and obfuscate the points being presented, and this is a luxury, with respect to some topics, that we cannot afford. Taking my cue from Kristeva, I take the phenomenon of nationalism to be one such topic. Its political and cultural urgency entails – I would even say obliges – theorists to be as direct as possible in exploring and dissecting its many facets.
