THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL IDENTITY AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

§1. WHY TALKING ABOUT 'CULTURAL DENTITY'?

There is an old nursery rhyme which gives an answer to this question...

"The Germans live in Germany, the Romans live in Rome,

The Turks live in Turkey; but the English live at home."

This paper concerns the semantics of these two lines of this nursery rhyme, which is — it goes without saying — an 'English' nursery rhyme.

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the question as to how cultural identity could be described? Due to the strongly interdisciplinary character of my subject and the complicated nature of it, I can only scratch the surface at present a general view.

If we examine the interactions between cultures now, at the end of this century, we acknowledge two contradictory but strong tendencies: "[...] on one hand, there is the search for cultural authenticity, the return to origins, the need to preserve minor languages, pride in particularisms, admiration for cultural self-sufficiency and maintenance of national traditions; on the other hand, we find the spread of a uniform world culture, the emergence of supranational myths and the adoption of similar lifestyles in widely different settings. Modern technological societies have generated a transnational, composite, mass culture with its own language whose linguistic imprint is already universally evident."1

The paradox between nationalization and globalization can be found in many parts of the world and in many different ways. Concerning the European unification, for example, Philip Schlesinger has aptly described this paradox as follows: "On the one hand, the difficult search for a transcendent unity by the European Community — one which must recognize different components — throws the nation-state into question from above, arguably contributing to crises of national identity. The political and economic developments in the integration process, however, are out of phase with the cultural: what European identity might be still remains open to question. On the other hand, the ethno-nationalist awakenings in the former communist bloc and current developments within western Europe — whether neo-nationalist separatisms or racist nationalisms — tend to reaffirm the principle of the nation-state as a locus of identity and of political control."2

Schlesinger correctly pointed a finger at the ultimate paradox of the last decade of the twentieth century: the clash between the indigenous, inner culture of a particular living community on the one hand and the global outer culture of a certain non-living but constructed ensemble of a number of communities. On a programmatic level this paradox goes under different catch words and slogans, such as: nationalization versus globalization, individual responsibility versus centralist efficiency, etc. On a programmatic level these slogans turn around conflicts at several distinctive levels: between an individual and his direct working environment (say: a university department), between a department and a new faculty structure, between a faculty and the development of a new governmental system, between a national government and the regulations of the European Union, etc.

Arjun Appadurai has suggested that globalization consists of five dimensions, five cultural flows which cross each other at various levels in many parts of the world. "Firstly, there are ethnoscapes produced by flows of people: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles and guest workers. Secondly, there are technoscapes, the machinery and plant flows produced by multinational and national corporations and government agencies. Thirdly, there are finanscapes, produced by the rapid flows of money in the currency stock exchanges. Fourthly, there are mediascapes, the repertoires of images and information, the flows which are produced and distributed by newspapers, magazines, television and film. Fifthly, there are ideoscapes, linked to flows of images which are associated with state or counterstate movement ideologies which are comprised of elements of the Western Enlightnment world-view — images of democracy, freedom, welfare, rights, etc."3

It is tempting to speculate on the question: What will be the strongest force in the near future: nationalizatioon or globalization? Obviously, the question is too tricky to be answered in a couple of pages. In any case: both tendencies with their completely opposite aims are in effect at the same place and at the same time. There is no reason, however, to think that the globalization tendency will be a much stronger force than the nationalization tendency in the near future. 4

Let me briefly mention one example. Americanization is an important aspect of globalization. It is represented in all five cultural flows I just explained. Americanization has affected most cultures, but generally speaking the reception of American culture (or what is regarded as such) might be different according to the specificity of the receiving culture. Some important conventions that make up the specificity of a particular culture structure the direction and the depth of the Americanization. I would venture the hypothesis that Americanization has been carried out differently in China than in The Netherlands. If you think this is a trivial observation, I could go further and state that Americanization has been carried out differently in Germany and in The Netherlands. This sort of question constitutes an intriguing research object, also for literary studies, as far as the literary aspects of Americanization are concerned.

On one hand we can observe that"[...] nationalism is back today with a vengeance all over the world [...]"5 from Canada to India, from the former USSR to Iraq, from Japan to Turkey. For the time being I belong to those who believe that nationalization will dominate globalization at least in the foreseeable future, and not only outside western Europe as some critics want us to believe, but also to a considerable extent in the countries that belong to the key group members of the European Union. Helmet Dubiel, 6 for instance, points at new forms of German nationalism. But similar tendencies are alive and well in many other countries of the European Community.

I fully agree with Rolf Dahrendorf's7 conclusion after his fine analysis of the future of the nation state. He is convinced that also in the coming decades the nation state will stay on as a framework of individual rights and the centre from which international relations will be constructed. The nation state will not be touched by all kinds of new political and social developments. To phrase this in other well-known German words: "Europa ist ein Kopfgeburt und die Regionen sprechen das Herz an." ("Europe is a mental construction and the regions appeal to the heart.").

On the other hand we see the severe impact of the five cultural flows of globalization. Globalization will stay on as an extremely strong tendency, and its strength may become even stronger. But in the decades to come the nationalization tendency will be able to adopt and adapt many global trends to a considerate extent. Globalization will be nationalized to a great extent. That means — to answer the title of this section with a metaphor — that the primary home of the English is England but that their summer house stands in the place called 'the world'. Obviously the same is true for the Germans,the Romans and the Turks. But let us be realistic, whenever one takes the intellectual ride on a metaphor, it is essential that one knows where to get off. 8 It is better to get this metaphor right here, because reality is much more complex than this metaphor can indicate.

Let me add here that the threat of the nation or of nationalization does not primarily consist of globalization tendencies, but the threat comes also from within the nation itself. We could think here of the rupture of Canada, Belgium, Spain, the former Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and in a way we could add paradoxically the unification of Germany, where the following joke could be heard shortly after the unification.

An East-German says to a West-German:

-"We are one people now!"

The West-German replies:

-"We too!"

The understanding of the complex paradox nationalization versus globalization represents an object that is highly interesting and rewarding for a number of scholarly disciplines. The understanding of this paradox, however, can only be achieved through the concept of cultural identity. This very concept represents the ultimate reason for those serious conflicts between the smaller community and the bigger constructed ensemble between two or more smaller communities.

§2. WHAT IS CULTURAL IDENTITY?

Much scholarly research and journalistic writing take as their point of departure well-established stereotypes, based as they are on an ontological belief in the specificity of a certain community. What alternative can we offer which should make it possible to overcome the old ontological, essentialist approach to identity and to by-pass the new extreme relativism which says that identity escapes every attempt at definition?

In his latest collection of essays Ernst Gellner asks serious attention for cultural identity: "[...] it is not a delusion, cogitated by muddled romantics, disseminated by irresponsible extremists, and used by egotistical privileged classes to befuddle the masses, and to hide their true interests from them. Its appeal is rooted in the real conditioned of modern life, and cannot be conjured away, either by sheer good will and the preaching of a spirit of universal brotherhood, or by the incarceration of extremists. We have to understand those roots, and live with their fruits, whether we like them or not."9

In order to understand the roots of cultural identity we need to understand the semantics of this very concept. Here we do not have to go through the work by Sigmund Freud, George Herbert Mead, Erik Eriksson, Talcott Parsons, Jürgen Habermas and others to come up with a well-grounded description ofd identity. William Bloom already did this by concluding that"[...] identification is an inherent and unconscious behavioural imperative in all individuals. Individuals actively seek to achieve psychological security, and they actively seek to maintain, protect and bolster identity in order to maintain and enhance this psychological security which is sine qua non of personal stability and emotional well-being. This imperative works from infancy through adulthood and old age. Moreover, identifications can be shared, with the result that individuals who share the same identification will tend to act in concert ion order to protect and enhance their shared identity."10

These are beautiful words with which we probably all agree. But the problem arises when we try to describe somebody's personal identity or the cultural identity of a particular people. As we all know, talking about personal identity can be tricky, especially if wishful thinking, stereotypes and a strong belief in the overstressed uniqueness of a particular person or country are the only guidelines. One of the best recent definitions of "culture" has been by Geert Hofstede. I shall subscribe to his view, because his definition unites three important elements. Hofstede's definition shows the decisive value of culture, the importance of cultural relativism and the constructed character of culture.

Hofstede distinguished two meanings of the world 'culture'. There is "culture one", which he refers to civilization, refinement of the mind which can be found in education, art and literature. This is not the description of culture I would like to refer to. I shall select here Hofstede's "culture two", which "[...] deals with much more fundamental human processes than culture one; it deals with the things that hurt. Culture [two] is always a collective phenomenon, because it is at least partly shared with people who live or lived within the same social environment, which is where it was learned. It is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another."11

According to Hofstede culture is learned, not inherited. It derives from one's social environment, not from one's genes. He distinguishes culture from human nature based on the following reasoning: as a human being one can feel fear, anger, love, joy, sadness, etc. All those feelings belong to human nature. But the way these feelings are expressed is modified by culture. Culture as the software of the mind. It is also distinguished from the personality of an individual. The latter is described as her/his unique personal set of mental programs she/he does not share with any other human being. Hofstede's description of "personality" is somewhat naive, but his concept of culture is extremely useful.

Hofstede has a systematic (in sensu Niklas Luhmann) conception of culture. He does not see "culture" as a vast unspecified domain but as an entity consisting of different levels, which are interrelated. At the same time a person always belong to a number of the following levels, indicators of identity, for instance: a national level according to one's country; a regional/ethnic/religious/linguistic affiliation; a gender level; a generation level; a social level; an organizational or corporate level for those who are employed. The implication is that it is impossible to speak about 'the' identity of a person or group: it may vary according to circumstances.

For the concept of 'cultural identity' this implies that the cultural identity of a particular group or people is only partly determined by their national identity. Cultural identity is a broader concept than national identity. In this respect I subscribe to E. J. Hobsbawm who emphasizes that belonging to a particular state "[...] is only one way in which people describe their identity among many others which they use for this purpose, as occasion demands."12 Whether it is justified to conclude on the basis of that argument that the power of nationalism is receding around the globe, as Hobsbawm does, is another matter and seems to be wishful thinking. The struggle between nationalization and globalization is not yet decided, but based on recent political developments in some parts of the world, the wars and fighting which are going on my forecast would be the opposite from that of Hobsbawm. The nationalization trend might hold the winning cards for the immediate future.

But back to Hofstede. He undertook a large scale intercultural research project, which revealed the following five dimensions, on the basis of which cultures can be classified: 13

1. Social inequality, including relationship with authority;

2. The relationship between the individual and the group;

3. Concepts of masculinity and femininity, the social implications of having been born as a boy or a girl;

4. Ways of dealing with uncertainty, relating to the control of aggression and the expression of emotions; and

5. A long-term orientation in life versus a short-term orientation.

Hofstede's conception of culture has a number of advantages. In his conception culture is an ever changing entity not a static one; culture is learned not inherited; there are no criteria on the basis of which culture 'A' is 'intrinsically' better than culture 'B' (with the usual theoretical exceptions such as the culture that deliberately and seriously violates human rights); culture is a mental construction rather than an innate property of a certain community. This implies that Hofstede's view of culture is more useful and better to apply in actual research than many other definitions of culture, which base themselves on an ontological or essentialist conceptions.

A weak side of Hofstede's book, however, is that the very concept of cultural identity is not used. This concept, however, is need to discuss questions whenever two cultures come into contact with each other or — at an academic level — are compared with each other. A key question such as "How can the distinctiveness or the specificity of this culture be determined?" is in fact a question concerning the cultural identity of a particular community. The extent to which a certain culture can be said to have distinctive and common traits can only be determined on a comparative basis. As the American sociologists Jepperson and Swidler recently stated: "The essential strategy for making the invisible visible is of course [bold mine] comparative research. And that is exactly why disciplines which have a comparative basis should take the lead in research in this domain."14 Books discussing the cultural identity of a particular nation often refer to certain "special features", "characteristics", and "traits" of a country or its people. Often these observations are more based on impressions, introspections, myths and — not to forget —jokes than on factual evidence or empirical research.

Obviously, I do not want to deny for instance that the thousands of existing jokes concerning national and cultural stereotypes can function as an indicator for a particular aspect concerning the cultural identity of a particular community or nation. But they are just indicators and not more than that.

Consider for instance the following two jokes. The first originated in New York, the second in Tokyo.

In a New York hotel an American and Japanese engineer meet for the first time and they introduce themselves to each other. Obviously the American first:

— "Hello, my name is John, John Smith. Nice to meet you. I am an electrical engineers and — by the way — at this moment I am working at Kodak." After two minutes of silence the Japanese says:

— "Hello, I am Toyota and my name is nobody.

This joke may serve as an indicator of the American self-image as individualistic, self-confident and successful. The joke also implicitly constructs an image that Japanese professionals are no individuals, they are neither self-confident, nor successful.

Obviously, the Japanese from their side have a pagoda full of American jokes, such as this one.

An American and a Japanese meet each other on a safari trip in Africa. They take a walk together, somewhat outside the safe touristic path. All of a sudden, they are confronted with a hungry looking lion. The American immediately starts running and running. But the Japanese does not move and thoughtfully opens his black leather briefcase in order to take out a pair of gym shoes. Looking back at the Japanese the American starts shouting:

—"Come on, run for your life, leave those gym shoes behind; you do not have a chance any-how to run faster than the lion does."

The Japanese thinks, waits a bit and says politely:

—"The one I have to outrun is not the lion but you."

This joke may serve as an indicator of the Japanese self-image as smart, civilized and competitive, whereas the American is seen as impulsive, thoughtless and imposing.

These jokes not only demonstrate the well-known fact handed over to us from social psychology that the image of a neighbouring people is constructed as a negative counterpart of their own image, on the basis of which the in-group people can identify themselves more easily with their self image. 15 But the jokes should also show the construction of cultural identity involves at least two parts: the in-group and the out-group, the perception of oneself and the perception of the other ('Selbstwahrnehmung' and 'Fremdwahrnehmung'). The Japanese looks at the American from a Japanese perspective, and the other way around.

In our time it is of great importance to have an adequate, well-balanced insight into the cultural identity of a particular nation. A distorted view can significantly hamper good understanding and adequate communication with citizens of that nation. Very often political conflicts and wars find their deep origin in distorted visions of one's own and the foreign identity. What has been said so far concerning cultural identity applies also to literary identity, with the apparent exception that a misconception of the literary identity of a particular nation might not have such severe consequences as the distortion of the cultural identity.

Often cultural identity has been seen as a range of characteristics which are unique for a particular culture and 'innate' to a specific people. And even now, there are still many examples (and not primarily in the periphery of scholarship) of this type of thinking. Another view at cultural identity has a structuralist character, where a particular culture is seen as a set of characteristics which are all related to each other, more or less independent from the people that make that culture. The alternative for the conception of 'identity' as a set of unique or structural characteristics is the idea of identity as a construction.

Within such a constructive framework the cultural identity of a particular nation or a certain ethnic group within that nation can be attached to these factors:

1. The formal characteristics concerning that nation or group at a given time in history;

2. The "programming of the mind" (to use Hofstede's words) within a particular community on the basis of which the cultural identity by the in-group is being constructed;

3. The way in which people from outside conduct a process of selection, interpretation and evaluation concerning the specificity of the ingroup, which means in other words the outside image of the cultural identity of a foreign nation or group. The relationship between these three elements is a dynamic one. Ideally, the (scholarly) construction of identity should be based on all three factors. 16

What are formal characteristics with respect to cultural; identity? Formal characteristics are 'facts', figures that can be found in statistical notebooks concerning a particular country or an ethnic group and that determine to a great extent the programming of the mind of a given society, and the other way around. For instance: the total number of citizens in a country, the size of the country, the gross national product, average income, percentage of unemployment, and — coming closer to home — the number of museums, the number of books produced, the genres, the relation between 'native' and translated books, etc.

Since we do not have direct access to the way peoples' minds are programmed, we are driven back on visible indicators thereof. We have to look at the style of conduct and communication in a particular community, to use Gellner's more programatically orientated definition of culture. 17 This style of conduct and communication of the citizens of a state or the members of a particular ethnic group is either their visible cultural identity. This visible cultural identity can be suppressed or thematized by opinion leaders (individuals and institutions) within that particular community. It is impossible to talk about cultural identity without taking into consideration which spokesmen/women are defining it and along which lines it happens.

The third element of the identity triangle consists of the constructions made by persons, most of the time opinion leader or institutions from outside concerning the conduct and communication of the people inside.

It would be somewhat misleading to think that the view to consider national or cultural identity as a construction originated in systems theory (from Ludwig von Bertlanffy to Niklas Luhmann). Scholars working outside this domain arrived more or less at the same conclusion. An interesting example is Benedict Anderson, who coined the term "imagined community". In an attempt to define the concept of "nation" he states: "[...] it is an imagined political community — and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion."18 For a good understanding I am not saying that Anderson's "imagination" is an equivalent to Luhmann's "construction". The similarity is to be sought in the emphasis on the mental processing of a particular object.

To consider cultural identity as a construction means that it is a mental conception which may vary according to the constructor, the time and place of construction. This implies that it is impossible to speak about 'the' cultural; identity of a community. In theory there are as many cultural identities of a given community as there are times, places and people to construct that identity. That should not prevent scholars, however, from the necessary task to describe and systematize the common characteristics based on those several existing identities. Moreover, in reality we are normally confronted with only one dominant construction of the cultural identity of a particular country.

The most recent development concerning the thinking on the concept of cultural identity has been the addition of the prefix 'post', as an attempt to resolve the paradox between globalization and nationalization. The term "postnational identity" is coined in a recent book by Dewandre and Lenoble. 19It implies the paradox between the necessity of the construction of one political European identity based on the development of the European Union as against the promotion of the cultural distinctiveness of the several European nations and regions. One political identity versus many distinctive cultural identifies, all living under the same roof of a house called "postnational identity". This concept of "postnational identity" looks rather academic, sponsored by wishful thinking "from Brussels with love".20

It is impossible to investigate the 'complete' cultural identity of a particular community. The best one can do is to select and investigate some elements that are supposed to form a central part of it. Literature and its reception offer an excellent opportunity to construct basic elements of the cultural identity of a certain nation or group, based on the literary ability to represent important aspects of a particular community.

§3. THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

Fields like philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, international relations and political science have dealt with the concept of cultural identity on a relatively large scale, but mainly in combination with topics such as the European unification, nationalism, and lifestyle research. The cultural aspect in a more narrow sense of the word, received too much attention. And here the opening can be found for disciplines with an aesthetic dimension: such as literary studies, theatre and media studies.

To concentrate for a moment on my own field: comparative literature boasts a long standing expertise in comparing authors and texts, literary movements, literary histories from two or more cultures. But the question of the specificity of a certain culture or of a certain literature, has been raised sometimes, but not answered at least not adequately. So far the problem concerning the Englishness of English literature, the Chineseness or Chinese literature, etc. has not been solved. The investigation of cultural and literary identity constitutes an eminent topic for a field like comparative literature. And this approach may result in new challenges and promising possibilities.

In my paper I have tried to show that not only the English 'live at home', but also the Germans, the Romans and the Turks. I also tried to show -- and that was obviously my main point -- that the study of cultural identity has become (or: is more than ever) a crucial object for scholarship throughout the world.

I realize that the study of the cultural identity of a nation or a group within that nation does not constitute a direct highway to heaven. On the one side of the concept is tricky and vague. On the other side the 'real specificity' (or: the specificity as constructed by our consciousness) of a community is too complex to be grasped by one concept. Moreover, there is an additional reason to be skeptic and critical, which is also true for similar concepts like 'tradition', 'culture', 'nation' and 'ethnic group'. As Richard Handler correctly observed on this respect: "Identity has become a salient scholarly and cultural construct in the mid-twentieth century, particularly in social-scientific scholarship in the United States. Its prominence is that context, however, does not mean that the concept can be applied unthinkingly to other places and times."21

To deal with this justified criticism would imply another paper, which I am happy to [write] at another time maybe., For the moment, let me finish by repeating my conviction that concentration on studies concerning cultural identity will enhance our insight into the major contemporary and social issues. Fascinating and important tasks lay ahead of us. **

NOTES

** Revised version of the paper:

SEGERS, Rien T., Cultural Identity at the End of the Twentieth Century, in ENCONTRO INTERNACIONAL "DIÁLOGO CULTURAL E DIFICULDADES DE ENTENDIMENTO" (COLLOQUIUM ON CULTURAL DIALOGUE AND CULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDING), Macao, Instituto Cultural de Macau - Fundação Oriente, 13-14 October 1995 - [Oral communication...].

1 One School, Many Cultures, Paris, Organisation For Economic Co-Operation And Development- Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 1989.

2 SCHLESINGER, Philip, Europeanness: A New Cultural Battlefield, in HUTCHINSON, Jonh - SMITH, Anthony D., eds., "Nationalism", Oxford - New York, Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 31-325, p.325.

3 APPADURAI, Arjun, Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, in FEATHERSTONE, Mike, ed., "Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity", London, Sage, 1990, pp. 6-7.

4 FEATHERSTONE, Mike, ed., Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, London, Sage, 1990 -- For an interesting set of papers concerning 'globalization'.

5 RADAKRISHNAN, R., Nationalism, Gender and the Narrative of Identity, in PARKER, Andrew, et al, eds., "Nationalisms and Sexualities", New York - London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1992, pp. 77-95, p.83.

6 DUBIEL, Helmut, Über Moralische Souveränität, Erinnerung und Nation, in "Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Europäisches Denken", 48(9-10) 1944, pp. 884-897, p.896.

7 DAHRENDORF, Ralf, Die Zukunft des Nationalstaates, in "Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Europäisches Denken", 48 (9-10) 1944, pp. 751-761, p.760.

8 HANNERZ, Ulf, Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning, New York, Columbia University Press, 1992, p.264.

9 GELLNER, Ernest, Encounters with Nationalism, Oxford, Blackwell, 1994, p.45.

10 BLOOM, William, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.53.

11 HOFSTEDE, Geert, Cultures and Organizations, London, Harper Collins, 1994, p.5.

12 HOBSBAWN, E. J., Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 182.

13 HOFSTEDE, E. J., op. cit., p. 13.

14 JEPPERSON, Ronald L. - SWIDLER, Ann, What Properties of Culture Should We Measure?, in "Poetics",(22)1994, pp. 359-371, p.368.

15 FINK, Gonthier-Louis, Das Bild das Nachbarvolkes im Spiegel der Deutschen und Franzöisischen Hochaufklärung (1750-1789), in GIESEN, Bernhard, "Nationale und Kulturelle Identität: Studien zur Entwicklung des Kollektiven Bewusstseins in der Neuzeit", Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1991, pp. 453-492, p.453.

16 SEGERS, Rien T., Research into Cultural Identity: A New Empirical Object: The Case of Japanese 'Uniqueness' between East and West, in "SPIEL: Siegener Periodikum zur Internationalem Empirischen Literaturwissenchaft", (11)1992, pp. 149-162 -- For a more extensive explanation.

17 GELLNER, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism, Oxford, Blackwell, 1983, p.92.

18 ANDERSON, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London, Verso, 1983, p. 15.

19 DEWANDRE, Nicole - LENOBLE, Jacques, eds., Projekt Europa: Postnationale Identität: Grundlage für eine Europäische Demokratie?, Berlin, Schelzky und Jeep, 1994.

20 PITCH, Robert, Europa: Aber was versteht man darunter? Aufforderung zur Überprüfung der Denkmuster, in "Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Europäisches Denken", 48 (9-10) 1944, pp. 850-866--For more extensive criticism.

21 HANDLER, Richard, Is 'Identity' a Useful Cross-cultural Concept?, in GILLIS, John R., ed., "Commemmorations: The Politics of National Identity", Princeton, Princeton University Press, pp. 27-40, p.28.

* Ph. D. in Psychology and Comparative Literature by the University of Utrech, The Netherlands. Professor at the Department of Comparative Literature and Theory of the University of Groningen.