Who Sings the Nation-State?

Language, Politics, Belonging

Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty, Butler Judith

"Who Sings the Nation-State" brings together two of America's foremost critics and two of the most influential theorists of the last decade. Together, they explore the past, present and future of the state in a time of globalization.

What is contained in a state has become ever more plural whilst the boundaries of a state have become ever more fluid. No longer does a state naturally come with a nation. In a world of migration and shifting allegiances – caused by cultural, economic, military and climatic change – the state is a more provisional place and its inhabitants more stateless.

This spirited and engaging conversation ranges widely across Palestine, what Enlightenment and key contemporary philosophers have to say about the state, who exercises power in today´s world, whether we can have a right to rights, and even what the singing of the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish says about the complex world we live in today.

About the Author

Judith Butler is the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of many books, including "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity" and "Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex'".

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is University Professor in the Humanities and the author of many books, including "The Post-Colonial Critic" and "Nationalism and Imagination", the latter also published by Seagull Books.

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