Professor Tom Nairn

Position	Professor
School / Work Unit	Global Studies, Social Science &Planning
Contact Details	+(61 3) 9925 9586 tom.nairn@rmit.edu.au
Location	Building: 37 Level: 5 Room: 31 City Campus
Portfolio	Design & Social Context

Qualifications

MA, Edinburgh University, 1956

Teaching/Work responsibilities

Innovation Professor in Nationalism and Cultural Diversity, the Globalism Institute, RMIT University (2002)

Research Interests

Tom Nairn’s contribution to studies of nationalism, and therefore his potential contribution to the Centre of Excellence, is difficult to overstate. Writing in the London Review of Books, Neal Ascherson stated that Nairn has been ‘for twenty years the dominant political philosopher of his country, and an influence on the ideas of the post-1968 generation all over Western Europe’. Tom Nairn is widely known for developing in the early 1960s what would later be named the Nairn-Anderson thesis on British decline, which is much-cited and commented upon, and has had a definitive influence upon studies of nationalism and politics in Britain and beyond. He is one of the four most widely cited authorities on nationalism in the world today, along with Benedict Anderson, Anthony Smith and the late Ernest Gellner. His influential book The Break-up of Britain (1977) gained much attention for its prediction of the unsustainability of the United Kingdom state and its probable fragmentation into a number of different republics. This text has been central reference for the growing field of nationalism studies and is used in hundreds of university courses across the world. Where the Break-up of Britain refocused studies of nationalism and uneven development, Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited (1998) established the field of argument that civic and secular nationalism is a key feature of modernity and not an archaic reaction against it. It is part of his general contribution to fundamentally rethinking the place of ‘nationalism from below’. His much acclaimed book After Britain (2000) continued the argument of The Break-up of Britain, concentrating especially on Scotland and devolutionary politics, along with the structural tensions within Blairism. Through his analytical and translating work, he is credited, together with Perry Anderson, with introducing Antonio Gramsci’s work to Anglophone culture, especially the notion of ‘hegemony’, which has had a major influence on the field of political and cultural studies since.

Research Projects, Consultancy and Student Project

Tom Nairn has been involved in a very wide range of political, intellectual and cultural activities. He has devoted much time to publication of non-academic or para-academic material, such as writing for non-refereed journals, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets and on-line venues. These include Anno (Rome), Bulletin of Scottish Politics (Edinburgh), Dissent (USA), Il Contemporaneo (Rome), Kursbuch (Berlin), Les Temps Modernes (Paris) New Statesman, Mondo Operaio, Libération, The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, and the London Review of Books. Over the period of 1989–1994, he wrote a fortnightly article for The Scotsman (Edinburgh) dealing mainly with the development of the constitutional independence movement, and he has served as London correspondent of l’Unità . Overall the combination of his academic publications and public role have been ground-breaking, and had a major effect on the course of his field of expertise.

Publications

Books

Beginning of the End (with Angelo Quattrocchi) 1968, 2nd edition, Preface by Tariq Ali, Verso Books, London & New York, 1998 (ISBN1859842909).

The Left Against Europe, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, England, 1973 (ISBN 0140217657)

Atlantic Europe (Editor, and Introduction), Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, 1976.

The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-nationalism, New Left Books, London 1977, 2nd edition, Verso Books, London, 1981 (ISBN 0860917061); 3rd edition, CommonGround Publishing, Melbourne, 2003 (ISBN 1-86335-508-1).

Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited, Verso Books, London, 1977 (ISBN 1859841945).

The Enchanted Glass: Britain and its Monarchy, Cape and (2nd edition) Radius/Random House, London & New York, 1994 (ISBN 0091729602).

After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland, Granta, London, 2000 (ISBN 1862072930).

Pariah: Misfortunes of the British Kingdom, Verso Books, London & New York, 2002 (ISBN 1859846572).

Global Matrix: Nationalism, Globalism and State Terrorism (with Paul James), Pluto Press, London & New York, 2005 (ISBN 0 74532290 5 and 0745322913).

Globalizing Empires, Old and New (with Paul James), Sage Publications, London, 2006 (ISBN 1 412919541 Hb).

Book Chapters and Journal Articles

‘Democracy and Genocide’, Arena Journal (Melbourne) New Series N.16, 2000/1.

‘Black Pluto’s Door: After Sept. 11th’,www.opendemocracy.net, October 2001.

‘Mario and the Magician’, New Left Review (Second Series) No. 9, 2001.

‘Farewell Britannia: Break-up or New Union?’, New Left Review (Second Series) No.7, 2001.

‘The Lord of the Rings: Ethnicity in Your Dreams’, www.opendemocracy.net, February 2002.

‘Disorientations From Down Under: the Old Country in Retrospect’, in Tomorrow’s Scotland, edited G.Hassan and C.Warhurst, London, 2002.

‘Authoritarian Man: the Axis of Good’, www.opendemocracy.net, July 2003.

‘Break-up: Twenty-five Years On’, in Scotland in Theory: Reflections on Culture and Literature, edited by E. Bell and G. Miller, Rodopi Publishing, Amsterdam & New York, 2004.

‘Death in Canada: Misfortunes of Ethnicity’, Edinburgh Review, 2004.

‘Finishing the Story: Reflections on Exile’, in Spirits of the Age, Saltire Society, Edinburgh, 2005.

‘The New Furies’, New Left Review, Second Series No. 37, Jan-Feb. 2006.

‘Union on the Rocks?’, New Left Review, Second Series No.43, Jan-Feb 2007.

‘Byzantium’, Arena Magazine, April 2008.

URL (personal web site)

http://web.mac.com/tomnairn/Site_3/Welcome.html