On 8 September 2016 NISE is holding as part of its Annual Gathering, together with University of Antwerp (UA) and with the help of Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (CRBC), a workshop at the Institute of Political Studies of the Charles University in Prague. The subject is the so-called ‘protagonist’ of national and regional movements.

Institut politologických studií

The importance of the concepts of ‘heroes’ and ‘leaders’ for the development of national movements is reflected by the vast scientific attention paid to them, unwittingly pushing other players to the background. But at least as crucial for the success and failure of national movements are the less well-known and less celebrated advocates of the cause or ‘protagonists’, engaged in the dissemination and transfer of cultural and political ideas, acting as go-between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’, and actively turning them into reality. There is a clear necessity of defining and analysing this important aspect of national movements and in the process providing data to put related nationalism theories to the empirical test.

This workshop acts as a preliminary meeting to a conference on the ‘protagonists’ within national movements. The aim is to delineate this analytical category and test it through prosopographical and case studies. The workshop will assist with narrowing down the subject for the conference. We therefore especially welcome conceptual and theoretical contributions as well as concept-related prosopographical studies of both case biographies and group profiles (regional, professional etc.).

Ludger Mees (University of the Basque Country, Bilbao) acts as convenor, supported by a working group consisting of Miroslav Hroch (Charles University, Prague), Laurent Le Gall (Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique, Brest), Anne-Marie Thiesse (CNRS, Paris), Andreas Stynen (ADVN) and NISE scientific coordinator Nel de Mûelenaere (University of Antwerp).

For more information on the content, format and conditions of the workshop see call for papers.

The program for the event will be made public as well as the registration details available from June 15, 2016.