The Curious Case of Cú Chulainn: Nationalism, Culture, and Meaning Making in the Contested Symbols of Northern Ireland

While scholars have long recognized the importance of symbols to nationalism, most analyses examine relatively unambiguous symbols. I seek to understand how such processes function when symbolic meaning is contested, analyzing how organizations on both sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland deployed representations of Cú Chulainn to support conflicting political programs. I argue that movements in Northern Ireland imbued symbols with meaning by emplotting them within ideological narratives. In return, these symbols provided evidence that strengthened and supported the ideological narratives of the movements that produced them, serving as potent reminders of the worldview such narratives advocate

Bandits, Militants, and Martyrs: Sub-state Violence as Claim to Authority in Late Antique North Africa

Fourth Century North Africa was a site of intense religious and political conflict. Emerging from a period of persecution and newly legitimized by the Roman state, the Christian Church immediately fractured into two competing camps. Now known as the Donatist schism, this fracture was the result of competing claims to religious authority between two camps of bishops, but the doctrinal debate at its core precipitated a specific form of violence: attacks on clergy and property perpetrated by roving groups of militant bandits. Known as circumcellions, these bands acquired a perverse reputation for religious zeal, a desire for martyrdom, and what their opponents described as the ‘madness’ and ‘insanity’ of their violence. Here I analyze sources produced by both Donatists and Catholics to trace patterns of circumcellion violence. I draw on borderland theory and research on non-state violence to argue that such acts were not mad, but rather the result of strategic efforts to consolidate religious and political power. In this, Donatism and the sectarian violence that accompanied it provide important insights into how banditry and peasant rebellions can se.rve as alternate sources of social and political power, avenues through which heterodox movements challenge the power state and religious hierarchies alike</p

The Art of War: Instability, Insecurity, and Ideological Imagery in Northern Ireland’s Political Murals, 1979-1998

* Final published version available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10767-013-9142-y * This article examines the purpose behind, and rhetorical content of, political wall murals produced during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I utilize a semiotic approach to analyze the ways that the symbolic content and physical placement of Northern Irish murals were used by actors on both sides of the conflict. I examine the major thematic traditions utilized by muralists on each side and situate them within the historical and political contexts of the conflict in Northern Ireland. This approach highlights the ways that murals did more than simply champion ideological causes, as earlier scholarship has argued, but served an active role in efforts to catalyze cultural support for organizations' political goals. I argue that murals played a key role for organizations on both sides of the conflict, as they each struggled to craft a communal self-identification and legitimizing central narrative that furthered their ideological goals. Organizations on both sides used murals to mobilize cultural support for their political and military struggles. In this regard, murals functioned as a form of mythic speech, attempting to depoliticize highly political ideologies and make the rhetoric used by the competing groups seem natural and pure. The grassroots nature of the mural traditions is particularly telling in this regard, exposing the deep-seated insecurity of organizations on both sides. This insecurity is further reflected by, and served as a catalyst for, the paramilitary violence that was a defining characteristic of Northern Ireland for so long

'Religion and Nation are One': Social Identity Complexity and the Roots of Religious Intolerance in Turkish Nationalism

* Final published version available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2018.6 * Turkish nationalism has long been an enigma for scholars interested in the formation of national identity. The nationalist movement that succeeded in crafting the Republic of Turkey relied upon rhetoric that defined the nation in explicitly secular, civic, and territorial terms. Though the earliest scholarship on Turkish nationalism supported this perspective, more recent research has pointed to Turkey's efforts to homogenize the new state as evidence of the importance of ethnicity, and particularly religion, in constructing Turkish national identity. Yet this marked mismatch between political rhetoric and politics on the ground is perplexing. If Turkey was meant to be a secular and civic state, why did Turkish nationalist policies place such a heavy emphasis on ethnic and religious purity? Moreover, why did religious identity become such a salient characteristic for determining membership in the national community and for defining national identity? This article draws upon historical research and social identity complexity theory to analyze this seeming dichotomy between religious and civic definitions of the Turkish nation. I argue that the subjective overlap between religious and civic ingroups during the late Ottoman Empire and efforts by nationalists to rally the populace through religious appeals explains the persistence of religious definitions of the nation despite the Turkish nationalist movement's civic rhetoric, and accounts for much of the Turkish state's religiously oriented policies and exclusionary practices toward religious minorities in its early decades

Understanding the Exclusionary Politics of Early Turkish Nationalism: An Ethnic Boundary-Making Approach

* Final published version available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2017.1315394 * Turkish nationalism has long presented a study in contrasts. The nationalist movement that created the Republic of Turkey sought to define the nation in explicitly civic and inclusive terms, promoting a variety of integrationist reforms. At the same time, however, those same nationalist politicians endorsed other policies that were far more exclusionary, expelling many religious and ethnic minorities from the new nation and imposing harsh restrictions on those who remained. The seemingly contradictory nature of Turkish nationalist policies has been mirrored by much of the scholarship on Turkish nationalism, which has often viewed Turkish nationality through the lens of the “civic/ethnic divide,” with various scholars arguing that the Turkish nation is exclusively civic or ethnic. This article seeks to transcend this dichotomous way of looking at Turkish nationalism. I argue that the policies previously seen as being exclusively civic or ethnic are in fact both examples of boundary-making processes, designed to forge a cohesive nationalist community. Seen through a boundary-making perspective, the seemingly contradictory nature of Turkish nationalist policies in its early years are not paradoxical at all, but represent a multi-dimensional effort to construct a cohesive national community that could replace the defunct Ottoman state

The Curious Case of Cú Chulainn: Nationalism, Culture, and Meaning Making in the Contested Symbols of Northern Ireland

While scholars have long recognized the importance of symbols to nationalism, most analyses examine relatively unambiguous symbols. I seek to understand how such processes function when symbolic meaning is contested, analyzing how organizations on both sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland deployed representations of Cú Chulainn to support conflicting political programs. I argue that movements in Northern Ireland imbued symbols with meaning by emplotting them within ideological narratives. In return, these symbols provided evidence that strengthened and supported the ideological narratives of the movements that produced them, serving as potent reminders of the worldview such narratives advocate.</p