Introduction

Recent work on national identity has focused on the ways in which nations can be imagined and traditions invented. Writing against the idea of national identity was something fixed and perennial, scholars have stressed the constructivist nature of national belonging, and the negotiated consent necessary for gluing the different and component parts of the nation together. All, in one way or another, emphasised the power of discourses to construct their objects which lies at the heart of the attempts to create this consent. These considerations form the framework for the research presented in this collection. The essays in this volume trace the different ways in which a sense of national identity can be constructed through cultural processes such as translation, language policy and practice, history, memory and literature, and examine these in national contexts ranging from Russia, Italy, France, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United States. The contributors elaborate the notions of constructed identities from a number of different perspectives and disciplines, including translation studies, linguistics, literature, history, sociology, political science, film studies, and gender and cultural studies.