LIAS Kolloquium: The Narcissistic Grammar of Populist Nationalism across Cases
LIAS Fellow Mehmet Celil Çelebi
08. Dec
In the winter semester 2026/27, the LIAS Colloquium will open its doors to the university community for the first time. The Fellows will present their current research projects, offering insights into the questions, methods and perspectives that shape their work. The weekly colloquium provides a space for focused exchange on the diverse research projects pursued at LIAS. All members of the university community are warmly invited to discover the programme and engage with the Fellows’ research.
Date: Tuesday, 8 Dec 2026, 12:15-1:45 p.m.
Location:Campus | Central Building C40.530
A critical theory approach to the rise of populist nationalism suggests that its appeal involves more than a search for freedom from the anxieties produced by globalization. Populist nationalism offers a narrative that invites its audience to identify with a collective subject imagined both as strong and as under threat. Yet the sources of these threats are not simply to be neutralized to free individuals from anxiety: they are constructed as deserving punishment. Focusing on a set of authoritative programmatic texts from populist-nationalist movements across hemispheres, the paper explores whether these narratives share a narcissistic grammar of injury, identification, and retribution. It constitutes the empirical leg of a broader book project that seeks to develop a critical theory of the psychic dynamics underlying the contemporary rise of the far right.