The Nation and the Promise of Friendship

When strangers meet in social clubs, watch reality television, or interact on Facebook, they contribute to the social glue of mass society-not because they promote civic engagement or democracy, but because they enact the sacred promise of friendship. Where most theories of nationalism focus on issues of collective identity formation, Kaplan's novel framework turns attention to compatriots' experience of solidarity and how it builds on interpersonal ties and performances of public intimacy. Combining critical analyses of contemporary theories of nationalism, civil society, and politics of friendship with in-depth empirical case studies of social club sociability, Kaplan ultimately shows that strangers-turned-friends acquire symbolic, male-centered meaning and generate feelings of national solidarity.

Autorentext

Danny Kaplan is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and directs the Men Studies center at the Gender Program at Bar Ilan University, Israel. Kaplan specializes in the study of solidarity through the prism of friendship and mediated sociability. He is the author of The Men We Loved: Male Friendship and Nationalism in Israeli Culture (2006).

Inhalt
Part I: The Theoretical Argument

1. Friendship and Solidarity: The Road Not Taken in Studies of National Attachment 2. Social Club Sociability 3. Public and Collective Intimacies 4. From Strangers to Friends to Brothers: The Meta-Narrative of National Solidarity
   Part II: The Case Studies
2. The Big Brotherhood: Freemasons and Civic Sociability 6. Songs of the Brotherhood: Radio Music and the Engineering of the National Mood7. The Big Brother: Reality TV Audience turned into Confidants8. The Absent Brother: Military Friendships and National CommemorationConclusion