In the frantic search to find an agreed name for emerging forms of collective agency, ‘the nation’ is frequently presented as an outdated inconvenience. This hasty generalisation fails to acknowledge the term’s continuing role in propping-up ‘invisible’ forms of state domination and, more importantly, its potential function as part of a critical biopolitics.   

The ‘death of the nation’ is a fallacy. As austerity erodes national sovereignty, the logic of globalization is experiencing a backlash, with new publics being forged and old identities renewed. Today OurKingdom launches a new series to explore this re-birth, introduced here by its editor.

Daniel Trilling, author of the new book Bloody Nasty People, talks to Jamie Mackay about the prevailing myths surrounding the far right in Britain, the demographic of its leadership and support, and the forms of resentment that such movements cultivate at their core. 

When the BBC fixates on a narrow literary canon, and presents classic novels in straightforward adaptations, it wastes its own potential. Why not follow up Radio 4's extraordinary and unusual 'Bloomsday' celebration to use fiction as a creative springboard to a radical new kind of broadcasting?

Over 16,000 aerial photographs capturing history dating from near the beginning of the last century were made freely available last week as part of the project 'Britain from Above'. Jamie Mackay explains how these images of our collective past can inspire discussions on the long-term fate of our shared spaces.

The arrival of the ‘Great British Summer’ has been marked by relentless propagandising and shocking displays of military hardware. But what is at stake is more than mere inconvenience - these official procedures pose a real challenge to public space, voice and identity across the UK. 

The highly acclaimed return of Mad Men to British TV brings the ethics of advertising back into the cultural foreground. Much of the humour in the series relies on the gullability of consumers in the 1950s. But, with advertising companies now attempting to reformulate the causes and nature of the current financial crisis we continue to run the risk of being duped. 

The Anonymous 'V for Vendetta' mask is an icon of the Occupy movement. But how does this band of deviant web pirates fit with the Occupiers ethics of responsibility, transparency and democracy? Cole Stryker's new book goes some way to deconstruct the generalisations.