scholarly journals White Identity and Ethno-Traditional Nationalism in Trump’s America

The Forum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-402
Author(s):  
Eric Kaufmann
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
White Identity ◽  
Economic Advantage ◽  
American Nationalism ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
White Nationalism ◽  
National Membership ◽  
Cultural Attachment

Abstract As the white share of America continues to decline, white identity is becoming more important for politics. I show that white identity is considerably stronger among whites who are attached to their ancestry, i.e. Irish, ‘American’ or Italian. Accordingly, we should see it as more reflective of cultural attachment than a desire for politico-economic advantage. In addition, a separate dynamic I term ethno-traditional American nationalism, is important. This is not white nationalism, but a form of American national identity in which ethnocultural elements form an important part but do not, like the American accent, form a condition of equal national membership. Ethno-traditional nationalism is about the ‘what is American’ question of symbolic attachment, rather than the ‘who is American’ question of which groups belong and are excluded, that has received the lion’s share of academic attention.

Naval Biography, the War of 1812, and the Contestation of American National Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lanzendörfer
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
War Of 1812 ◽  
Nationalist Discourse ◽  
American Nationalism ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Naval Officers

This essay argues that a close look at the relationship between periodical production and nationalist rhetoric in the biographies of naval officers printed in the Analectic Magazine between 1813 and 1816 suggests the contingent nature of national identity in the context of the War of 1812. American periodicals took great interest in the events of the War of 1812, providing something akin to war reportage to their subscribers. During the War of 1812, several periodicals turned to the production of biographies of naval and military commanders that had excelled on the battle field. Biography, however, provided more than merely a glimpse of notable lives: instead, periodicals negotiated and contested ideas about American nationhood through the medium of biography, a discovery which necessitates a re-appraisal of the role of biography in the Early Republic as well as of simplifying notions about American nationalism. Reading Washington Irving’s 1813 biography of Oliver Hazard Perry, winner of the Battle of Lake Erie, against James Kirke Paulding’s 1816 life of Thomas Macdonough reveals how different genealogical models of American ascendancy shaped the narratives told about naval officers; and in turn, how naval officers could become models for particular versions of American national identity. Nevertheless, both of these models remained contingently tied into a pre-existing nationalist discourse triggered by the war, rather than actively shaping this national discourse: in this, they also reveal something about the often-overemphasized power of periodicals to shape national consciousness.

The Crowded Prairie: American National Identity in the Hollywood Western.

2000 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 289
Author(s):  
Robert Murray Davis ◽  
Michael Coyne
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
American National Identity

Interpretative theories as roadmaps to constitutional identity: The case of the United States

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
OR BASSOK
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Patient Protection ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
Constitutional Identity

AbstractAs long as the American Constitution serves as the focal point of American identity, many constitutional interpretative theories also serve as roadmaps to various visions of American constitutional identity. Using the debate over the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, I expose the identity dimension of various interpretative theories and analyse the differences between the roadmaps offered by them. I argue that according to each of these roadmaps, courts’ authority to review legislation is required in order to protect a certain vision of American constitutional identity even at the price of thwarting Americans’ freedom to pursue their current desires. The conventional framing of interpretative theories as merely techniques to decipher the constitutional text or justifications for the Supreme Court’s countermajoritarian authority to review legislation and the disregard of their identity function is perplexing in view of the centrality of the Constitution to American national identity. I argue that this conventional framing is a result of the current understanding of American constitutional identity in terms of neutrality toward the question of the good. This reading of the Constitution as lacking any form of ideology at its core makes majority preferences the best take of current American identity, leaving constitutional theorists with the mission to justify the Court’s authority to diverge from majority preferences.

scholarly journals War and the Contest over National Identity

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 586-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta L. Coles
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
American People ◽  
American Character ◽  
Us Military ◽  
American President ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
Gulf Crisis ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Historical Moment

This paper looks at a recent historical moment in which the American national identity was defined and contested in the public arena. The Persian Gulf crisis of 1990–91 presents a case in point in which official actors attempted to define the American character and in so doing prescribed particular actions necessary to fulfill what it means to be an American. President George Bush's discourse used the crisis to rejuvenate US prestige and American confidence. He described Americans as unique in esteemed values and America as the only country capable of leading the world. In so doing, he invited American participation in support for US military intervention. On the other side, the peace movement chose to emphasize American weaknesses, domestic problems, and the gullible nature of the American people. In so doing, it attempted to shame Americans into supporting the anti-war movement.

“The American Outlaws Are Our People”: Fox Sports and the Branded Ambivalence of an American Soccer Fan at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup

2021 ◽  
pp. 152747642110532
Author(s):  
Charlotte E. Howell
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
World Cup ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Sports Programming ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
American Media

Drawing on fan studies, sports media studies, media industries studies, and participant observation of the American Outlaws, this essay analyzes specific aspects of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup as televised by Fox Sports in the wider context of soccer’s evolving place within the American sports media marketplace. American media companies have increasingly positioned soccer as an upscale sport in the U.S. In addition to representing an affluent and cosmopolitan taste culture, the representation of the American Outlaws as part of Fox Sports’ programming and branding flattened the frictions of class, national identity, politics, and race that shaped American soccer discourse in the summer of 2019. This essay explores this flattening and the underlying tensions between televising a tournament based in American national identity that allows for a more mass audience appeal and the more niche-based framing of soccer—including the progressive politics of women’s soccer—in U.S. sports media.

Troubling Masculinities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen Donnar
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
American History ◽  
War Films ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Media And Politics ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Genre Study

The association of the attacks of 9/11 with Hollywood science fiction and disaster spectacle was immediate and pervasive. Succeeding calls in media and politics for the reassuring return of ‘strong’ masculine types—predominantly drawn from Hollywood westerns, action and war films—were widespread, revealing renewed cultural fears of threats to America from both within and without.Troubling Masculinities is the first dedicated multi-genre study of representations of masculinity in encounters with terror in post-9/11 American cinema. The book examines the impact of “terror-Others”, from Arab terrorists to giant monsters, across a broad range of sub-genres—including disaster melodrama, monster movies, post-apocalyptic science fiction, discovered footage and ‘home invasion’ horror, action-thrillers and ‘frontier’ westerns—especially in relation to cinematic representations of masculinity in previous periods of national turmoil. The book demonstrates that the supposed reassertion of masculinity and American national identity in post-9/11 cinema repeatedly unravels across genres. Engaging critical arguments about how Hollywood cinema attempts to resolve male crisis in part through Orientalizing figures of terror, he shows how this unraveling reflects an inability to effectively extinguish the threat or frightening difference of terror. The heroes in these movies are unable to heal themselves or restore order, often becoming as destructive as the threats they encounter. The book concludes by showing how interrelated anxieties about masculinity and nation continue to affect contemporary American cinema and politics. By showing how persistent these cultural fears are, Troubling Masculinities offers an important counternarrative in this supposedly unprecedented moment in American history.

Abandoned Quarries

2018 ◽  
pp. 129-136
Author(s):  
Seth Perry
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Religious History ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Early National Period ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Early National ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Period

This concluding chapter discusses the consequences of biblicism in the early national period for subsequent American religious history. It considers bible culture in the later nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on how the corporatization of religious printing amplifed the Bible's status as an abstract commodity. Responding to the arguments put forward by W. P. Strickland in his 1849 History of the American Bible Society, the chapter argues that attaching the Bible's importance to American national identity could not leave the Bible unchanged, because that is not how scripturalization works. It also explains how the Bible's availability for citation and re-citation fundamentally changed the desire, effectiveness, and circumstances of its citation. Finally, it uses the abandoned quarry—empty because it has flled other places—as a figure for the themes of citation, performance, and identity explored in this book.

War in Peace

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Rice
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
World War ◽  
Critical Juncture ◽  
American Legion ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
Political Targets ◽  
Government Films

The American Legion emerged in March 1919, in the immediate aftermath of world war, a point at which the focus of conservative discourse and government policy shifted from overseas campaigns to domestic threats, from military to political targets. This chapter, by Tom Rice, examines the myriad ways in which the hugely influential American Legion used film at this critical juncture, extending military activities and imperatives into the postwar nation. Whether appropriating wartime government films; becoming an influential and respected voice on film reform; or—after the establishment of a designated film service in 1921—producing, distributing, and exhibiting movies, the American Legion used film to mold American citizens and to visualize, project, and shape the postwar nation. The American Legion’s initial uses of film reveal an industry—and a nation—challenged and torn apart by anxieties about immigration and foreign threats and by a wider battle over American national identity.

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