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The Emperor Is Naked: On the Inevitable Demise of the Nation State
The invention of the nation state was the crowning achievement of the Sykes–Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France in 1916. As a geostrategic move to divide, defeat, and dismantle the Ottoman Empire during the World War I it was a great success and so the modern colonial borders of the Arab nation states eventually emerged in the course of World War II. Today, as nations are reconceiving of their own postcolonial interpolated histories, Arab states are becoming total states on the model of ISIS with Iran, Morocco, Turkey, and Yemen violently manufacturing their legitimacy. And yet, simultaneously, examples such as the Nobel Peace Prize winning formation of a civil society ‘Quartet’ in Tunisia allude to a growing transnational public sphere across the Arab and Muslim world.
In The Emperor is Naked, Hamid Dabashi boldly argues that the category of nation state has failed to produce a legitimate and enduring unit of postcolonial polity. Considering what this liberation of nations and denial of legitimacy to ruling states will actually unfurl, Dabashi asks: What will replace the nation state, what are the implications of this deconstruction on global politics, and, crucially, what is the meaning of the post-colonial subject within this moment?
In The Emperor is Naked, Hamid Dabashi boldly argues that the category of nation state has failed to produce a legitimate and enduring unit of postcolonial polity. Considering what this liberation of nations and denial of legitimacy to ruling states will actually unfurl, Dabashi asks: What will replace the nation state, what are the implications of this deconstruction on global politics, and, crucially, what is the meaning of the post-colonial subject within this moment?
208 pages, Hardcover
Published April 15, 2020
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About the author
Hamid Dabashi
75 books202 followersBorn on 15 June 1951 into a working class family in the south-western city of Ahvaz in the Khuzestan province of Iran, Hamid Dabashi received his early education in his hometown and his college education in Tehran, before he moved to the United States, where he received a dual Ph.D. in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.
He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Max Weber’s theory of charismatic authority with Philip Rieff (1922-2006), the most distinguished Freudian cultural critic of his time.
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in his field. He has taught and delivered lectures in many North and Latin American, European, Arab, and Iranian universities. He is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, as well as a founding member of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University.
He has written 20 books, edited 4, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer reviewed journals on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, comparative literature, world cinema, and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). A selected sample of his writing is co-edited by Andrew Davison and Himadeep Muppidi, The World is my Home: A Hamid Dabashi Reader (Transaction 2010).
Hamid Dabashi is the Series Editor of Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World for Palgrave Macmillan. This series is putting forward a critical body of first rate scholarship on the literary and cultural production of the Islamic world from the vantage point of contemporary theoretical and hermeneutic perspectives, effectively bringing the study of Islamic literatures and cultures to the wider attention of scholars and students of world literatures and cultures without the prejudices and drawbacks of outmoded perspectives.
An internationally renowned cultural critic and award-winning author, his books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Danish, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Urdu and Catalan.
In the context of his commitment to advancing trans-national art and independent world cinema, Hamid Dabashi is the founder of Dreams of a Nation, a Palestinian Film Project, dedicated to preserving and safeguarding Palestinian Cinema. He is also chiefly responsible for opening up the study of Persian literature and Iranian culture at Columbia University to students of comparative literature and society, breaking away from the confinements of European Orientalism and American Area Studies.
A committed teacher in the past three decades, Hamid Dabashi is also a public speaker around the globe, a current affairs essayist, and a staunch anti-war activist. He has two grown-up children, Kaveh and Pardis, who are both Columbia University graduates, and he lives in New York with his wife and colleague, the Iranian-Swedish feminist, Golbarg Bashi, their daughter Chelgis and their son Golchin.
He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Max Weber’s theory of charismatic authority with Philip Rieff (1922-2006), the most distinguished Freudian cultural critic of his time.
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in his field. He has taught and delivered lectures in many North and Latin American, European, Arab, and Iranian universities. He is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, as well as a founding member of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University.
He has written 20 books, edited 4, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer reviewed journals on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, comparative literature, world cinema, and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). A selected sample of his writing is co-edited by Andrew Davison and Himadeep Muppidi, The World is my Home: A Hamid Dabashi Reader (Transaction 2010).
Hamid Dabashi is the Series Editor of Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World for Palgrave Macmillan. This series is putting forward a critical body of first rate scholarship on the literary and cultural production of the Islamic world from the vantage point of contemporary theoretical and hermeneutic perspectives, effectively bringing the study of Islamic literatures and cultures to the wider attention of scholars and students of world literatures and cultures without the prejudices and drawbacks of outmoded perspectives.
An internationally renowned cultural critic and award-winning author, his books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Danish, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Urdu and Catalan.
In the context of his commitment to advancing trans-national art and independent world cinema, Hamid Dabashi is the founder of Dreams of a Nation, a Palestinian Film Project, dedicated to preserving and safeguarding Palestinian Cinema. He is also chiefly responsible for opening up the study of Persian literature and Iranian culture at Columbia University to students of comparative literature and society, breaking away from the confinements of European Orientalism and American Area Studies.
A committed teacher in the past three decades, Hamid Dabashi is also a public speaker around the globe, a current affairs essayist, and a staunch anti-war activist. He has two grown-up children, Kaveh and Pardis, who are both Columbia University graduates, and he lives in New York with his wife and colleague, the Iranian-Swedish feminist, Golbarg Bashi, their daughter Chelgis and their son Golchin.
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January 17, 2023I won’t give this a rating as this is the kind of book I usually read when I already know more about the subject, which is a rule I should have adhered to. I think I missed quite a lot of nuances in my reading, especially because Dabashi often makes his points implicitly, giving the reader the opportunity to draw conclusions of their own based on the material he‘s presenting.
Overall, this was still very interesting even on a more surface level. Thinking about post-colonial environments is extremely important and Dabashi uncovers how neglected it has been and still is as a topic. I don’t think I share Dabashi‘s pessimism in regards to democracy but I understand why it has arisen in the face of many failed attempts at creating nation-state on a (sometimes pseudo) democratic basis. That’s, I will admit, though, maybe my Eurocentrism speaking. But I‘m also way less committed to the idea of the nation-state than many of the philosophers presented in this book. In fact, I was a little surprised by how important many of them saw the mechanism of the nation-state for political and social functions, but that is neither here nor there.
Overall, this was still very interesting even on a more surface level. Thinking about post-colonial environments is extremely important and Dabashi uncovers how neglected it has been and still is as a topic. I don’t think I share Dabashi‘s pessimism in regards to democracy but I understand why it has arisen in the face of many failed attempts at creating nation-state on a (sometimes pseudo) democratic basis. That’s, I will admit, though, maybe my Eurocentrism speaking. But I‘m also way less committed to the idea of the nation-state than many of the philosophers presented in this book. In fact, I was a little surprised by how important many of them saw the mechanism of the nation-state for political and social functions, but that is neither here nor there.
November 30, 2020
This book presumes a certain amount of knowledge of the geo-political situation in Palestine, knowledge that I mostly lack as a brainwashed American. Dabashi performs the admirable task of both presenting the outline of postcolonialism and discussing the inherent conflict between postcolonial states (if not all states) and the nations of people that are governed by them. He is unapologetic in his condemnation of the European model of instituting settler states to disrupt non-Western regions, and he presents a large body of evidence of its injustice. The theory in this work is well-reasoned, researched, and emotionally compelling, and Dabashi pragmatically relates his theories of state to the ongoing instability in the Arab world.
A few chapters end with book reports of the writings of contemporary and historic political theorists, and I find these sections the least compelling and interesting parts of the book. Some of the theory was also too dense for me to follow, but that probably says more about me than the author.
A few chapters end with book reports of the writings of contemporary and historic political theorists, and I find these sections the least compelling and interesting parts of the book. Some of the theory was also too dense for me to follow, but that probably says more about me than the author.
February 26, 2021
It is an excellent book on the current issues happening in the Middle East. I agree that MBS is not that educated when dealing with people who have problems with Islam. Bernie Sanders is considered somewhat a populist, but a left-wing populist.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews