The Institute proudly presents a series of roundtable discussions on our 2025-26 theme of Making A Nation. The events begin in January 2026 and run each month until June. All sessions will take place at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, 2 Hope Park Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9NW, and will be streamed online where possible.
UPCOMING:
Tuesday 26 May, 16:00-17:00
Constituting A Nation: Scots and 1776
A panel featuring Geoffrey Gorham, Deborah Cohn and Maeve Callan, chaired by Frank Cogliano, to mark the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence. A number of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were Scottish emigrants or descended from Scots, but Scots also formed a large part of Britain’s army in the Revolutionary War. From Cadwallader Colden, one of the last British governors of New York – and an Edinburgh graduate – to medieval Scottish identity’s ongoing echoes in the 19th-century American confederacy, Scotland was bound up tightly with the establishment of the new American state. This event explores the interplay between the two nations, and asks, how interdependent are the U.S.A. and other countries’ nation-building efforts?
Registration is open now at Eventbrite: https://constitutinganation.eventbrite.co.uk
The event will also be streamed online via Teams Webinar. To attend virtually, please click here.
Tuesday 23 June, 16:00-17:00
Peopling A Nation: migration and identity
A panel with Vanessa Montesi, Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier and Emily Clifford, chaired by Josephine Greenbrook. This event explores borders, trafficking, family migration and diasporas to discuss how nationhood and identity are formed and negotiated by those who have come from outside the UK. What does ‘nation’ mean, a decade on from the Brexit referendum? How do dual or multiple identities impact on belonging? What are the emotional, psychological, and social consequences of UK migration policies? The event takes place on the tenth anniversary of the Brexit vote, and in the year of the 75th anniversary of the Refugee Convention.
Previous events:
Tuesday 27th January, 16:00-17:00
Governing A Nation: energy, religion and welfare
A panel featuring Caryn Abrahams, A. Sophie Lauwers and Jacob Boswell, with Beth Cloughton as chair. Exploring citizenship and multi-level governance, we ask: how do states make decisions about key policies affecting their populations, from energy to religious tolerance? How do multi-level modes of governance combat inequality, further socio-spatial justice and foster ideas about what constitutes national identity? In what ways do governance and control operate – top-down, distributed, digital/’smart’ – and how are policy-makers influenced by data, activism, research or individual citizens?
Friday 13th February, 14:30-16:30
A Nation At The Crossroads: Palestine between genocide, statehood recognition and liberation
A panel featuring Toufic Haddad, Pietro Stefanini, Farah Aboubakr and Shaira Vadasaria, with Nicola Perugini as chair. This roundtable explores the question of Palestine in its current juncture at the crossroads of genocide, statehood recognition and liberation. It explores how ‘making a nation’ in the Palestinian context has entailed both making and unmaking ‘the case’ for Palestine and what this entails in terms of various acts of centring, framing, and performing. For full abstracts and biographies, please see the event programme here (opens as PDF).
Tuesday 24th February, 16:00-17:00
Censoring A Nation: from free speech to sedition and obscenity
A panel featuring Yawen Li, Fatima Z. Naveed and Deepshikha Behera, chaired by Katherine Inglis. Using case studies from China, India and Pakistan, the event addresses contemporary censorship by the state: how can art be used to oppose oppression and disenfranchisement? How do religious ideology and the vestiges of colonial governance continue to shape cultural-civic discourse? In an era of increasing geopolitical tension and rising authoritarianism, what means are being used to forge collective resistance?