This is a peer-reviewed book series that addresses cultural nationalism (and regionalism), and the canonization of cultural traditions, in nineteenth-century Europe.
The "cultivation of culture" ranges from the study of language to language politics; from the edition of ancient documents to the writing of national histories and historical novels; from the proclamation of national-literary programmes to the commemoration of great authors; from folklore studies to folk revivals and from archeology to the establishment of national museums.
Special emphasis is placed on the institutional and political settings for these cultural activities (the professionalization of learning, the emergence of the large-scale reading public, the state centralization of libraries, archives and universities), and on the comparative and dynamic aspects of these processes: exchanges and transfers between generations, between media and between cultural fields, as well as between countries and regions.
This dimension in the development of the European nation-state with its assertion of a cultural heritage and individuality offers a rich theme in the interstice between intellectual, cultural and political history.
Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts to either the series editor Joep Leerssen or the publisher at BRILL, Alessandra Giliberto.
Brill is in full support of Open Access publishing and offers the option to publish your monograph, edited volume, or chapter in Open Access. Our Open Access services are fully compliant with funder requirements. We support Creative Commons licenses. For more information, please visit Brill Open or contact us at openacess@brill.com.
Joep Leerssen is Professor of Modern European Literature in the Department of European Studies, University of Amsterdam. In addition, he was director of the Huizinga Institute (the Dutch national research institute for cultural history) from 1996 until 2006. He has published widely on cross-national stereotypes and national self-images, and on the links between literature, historical consciousness and nationalism; his book National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History was shortlisted for the Europe Book Prize 2007. He received the Spinoza Award in 2008, which he has applied to the establishment of the Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms (SPIN).
Editor-in-Chief
Joep Leerssen, University of Amsterdam
Editorial Board
John Breuilly, The London School of Economics and Political Science
Katharine Ellis, University of Cambridge
Ina Ferris, University of Ottawa
Patrick J. Geary, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Tom Shippey, Saint Louis University
Anne-Marie Thiesse, CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research)