The seminar researches the rise of nationalism in Europe and its increased presence in post-communist societies from the 1990s on, theories and sources of “ethnicity”, ‘national identity’, as well as uses and abuses of “national memory”. It explores the relationship between nationalism and language, gender, welfare state, racism, and anti-Semitism from different theoretical angles, from institutionalist to constructivist, and from the work of modernization theorists focusing on the emergence of nationalism in Europe to present-day analyses of conflicts and ethnic tensions in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Ukraine and more generally the post-communist space.