Publisher's Synopsis
This book addresses the topic of European unity and/or fragmentation from the vantage point of cultural and symbolic tension and thus the often ambiguous and unresolved figurations of the symbolic politics employed by proponents of integration in depth and the political symbolics of nation-states and national identities. The anthology sets out to highlight the tensions and conflicts resulting from the interplay between these two sets of symbolic identity construction, pivoting around different ways of staging culture and identity as a 'new battlefield' between forces of unity and forces of (national or regional) fragmentation and comprising theoretical as well as empirical contributions. It is a novel input to ongoing debates on the question of how most appropriately and adequately to conceptualise the interplay of political integration in Europe with (inter) cultural analysis and national identity.
