Identity Hunters
Video Essay by Isla Galloni Through its spectacular living-representations and decors, the Puy-du-Fou themepark has infused French history with renewed attraction. Its creator, Philippe de Villiers, endowed it with a “unique” mission: to transmit “eternal” emotions. Whilst this signals deeper political implications, Puy-du-Fou’s relation to nationalism remains understudied. Dismissing it as entertainment, current research ignores […]
Written by Angèle Rougeot Subtil Historical insight on the Kurdish question in Turkey 29th of October 1923. A new country was born. A few months after the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. Positing itself as the legitimate heir-state of the Ottoman Empire under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal […]
Written by Andrey Miroshnikov First published in 1895, Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind has assumed an enviable place in the history of influential literary works as much for the ideas it popularised as for the fame of those who supposedly used them. While the Frenchman’s work is said to […]
Written by Charles Khalaf “That of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory, this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea.” –Ernest Renan “Lebanon is the preeminent crossroads where varied civilizations drop in on one another, and […]
Written by Grace Jacovides and Victor Si Thu “An explosion of colour and sound,” Shen Yun is the performing arts branch of Falun Gong, an international “cult” whose spiritual practice and ideology positions them against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).1 Falun Gong actively promotes engagement with traditional Chinese values as an alternative to the “corruption” […]
Written by Mark Sturman The painting above, entitled Last Supper of a Blessed Nation was completed in 2022 by Jon McNaughton, the self-professed ‘foremost conservative artist’ of the USA. His work has risen to prominence in recent years, garnering a healthy degree of both ridicule and acclaim in the process. Admittedly, his heavy-handed symbolism frequently […]
Written by Francesca Hotson In the popular mind, the myth of a superior Aryan race is indelibly associated with Nazi ideology, with the German ‘Übermensch’, and anti-Semitism at its most murderously virulent. Nevertheless, the so-called Aryan race, as formulated in this myth, was not restricted to Germany or Europe: the theory embraced a far larger […]
Written by Andrey Miroshnikov When examining the emergence of National Socialism in Germany, it is only too natural to approach the subject by way of political, social and economic theory. While neither of these theories are void of reason, they all tend to lack novelty and excitement. The charge of staleness cannot, however, be mounted […]
Written by Emily Lewis, Tillmann Osici & Isla Galloni According to Emmanuel Macron, French society is “colour-blind”. However, 41,5% of France voted for the right-wing party Rassemblement National under Marine Le Pen, a woman who believes that an apparent “Islamisation” of France is endangering civilisation and who compared Muslim immigrants to the German soldiers who occupied […]
Identity Hunters 