This book analyzes top-down and bottom-up strategies of framing the nation and collective identities through commemorative practices relating to events from the Second World War and the 1990s "Homeland War" in Croatia. With attention to media representations of commemorative events and opinion poll data, it draws on interviews and participant observation at commemorative events to focus on the speeches of political elites, together with the speeches of opposition politicians and other social actors (such as the Catholic Church, anti-fascist organizations and war veterans’ and victims’ organizations) who challenge official narratives. Offering innovative approaches to researching and analyzing commemorative practices in post-conflict societies, this examination of a nation’s transition from a Yugoslav republic to an independent state – and now the newest member of the European Union – constitutes a unique case study for scholars of cultural memory and identity politics interested in the production and representation of national identities in official narratives.

As films like 'Slumdog Millionaire' attest, India on film is quickly growing beyond the Bollywood images that frequently spring to mind. In 'Framing the Nation', Sircar maps the distance that film theory has traveled in the Anglo-American academy and India in recent decades.

Framing the Nation: Documentary Film in Interwar France argues that, between World Wars I and II, documentary film made a substantial contribution to the rewriting of the French national narrative to include rural France and the colonies. The book mines a significant body of virtually unknown films and manuscripts for their insight into revisions of French national identity in the aftermath of the Great War. From 1918 onwards, government institutions sought to advance social programs they believed were crucial to national regeneration. They turned to documentary film, a new form of mass communication, to do so. Many scholars of French film state that the French made no significant contribution to documentary film prior to the Vichy period. Using until now overlooked films, Framing the Nation refutes this misconception and shows that the French were early and active believers in the uses of documentary film for social change - and these films reached audiences far beyond the confines of commercial cinema circuits in urban areas.

This book introduces a historical perspective on the emergence and development of social welfare. Starting from the familiar ground of 'the family', it traces some of the crucial historical roots and desires that fed the development of social policy in the 19th and 20th centuries around education, the family, unemployment and nationhood. By aiming to discover the link between past and present, it shows that social problems are socially constructed in specific contexts and that there are diverse and competing ways of telling history.

The world's first attempt at a scholarly historicisation of the African crisis of development, this book interrogates the problem of national integration within the context of ethno-religious and cultural pluralism. Here, top scholars offer refreshing insight into the prospects for transforming Africa into a super-power of the third millennium. The breadth and depth of coverage and analytical rigour unites the essays, providing one of the most comprehensive and authoritative treatments of the subject in recent years.

The first in-depth analysis of the independent work of Norwegian folklorist Peter Christen Asbjornsen, and a unique look at Norwegian identity formation. When Peter Christen Asbjornsen (1812-1885) published his collection of folktales, which became a classic of Norway's romantic period, his accomplishment went far beyond the folklorist's goal of documenting fascinating stories from various regions of his country. His Norske Imldreeventyr og folkesagn was not only a work of literature but also a codification of certain assumptions for the readers of its time. It reflected cultural and intellectual currents in microcosm and helped to create a worldview that is still relevant in Norway today. In this long overdue analysis of Asbjornsen's collection, Marte Hvam Hult establishes him as a major force in the development of Norwegian national identity and argues that his work should assume a more prominent place in the Norwegian literary canon. Asbjornsen is best known as Jorgen Moe's collaborator on the famous collection of folktales, Norske folkeeventyr, which sparked debate about how the Norwegian language should appear in print. In Norske huldreeventyr og folkesagn, Asbjornsen blended a literary perspective with that of a folklorist to create a remarkable synthesis of the real and the imagined. Studying this collection from a literary point of view, Hult considers such themes as the appropriation of a harsh natural environment and human interaction with both the ethnic and supernatural Other. She discusses how Asbjornsen helped to establish the modern Norwegian novel and how his depiction of plurality can help Norwegians forge a more cosmopolitan national identity.

Framing the future works. Every year, Flemming Fellows win a disproportionately large share of the progressive victories in the states. In fact, since the great leap backward of 2001, as one policy disaster after another was spawned in our nation's capital, Flemming Fellows and their allies made significant gains in state capitals all over the n...