Divine/Transcendent Rulers of Imagined Communities: The Rise and Fall of Royal Nationhood in Asia
Workshop Directors Wasana Wongsurawat Assistant Professor, History, Chulalongkorn University wwongsurawat@hotmail.com Michael K. Connors Associate Professor, School of Politics History and International Relations, University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus michael.connors@nottingham.edu.my Call for Workshop Papers The myth of the divine or virtuous ruler—the son of heaven, the Buddha reincarnated, the avatar of Vishnu, the descendant of the sun goddess, etc.—is just about as visceral and grounded in lived existence as the imagined community that is the modern nation-state, a form which has become dominant in the postcolonial era. And they largely shared the same technologies of propagation. Yet, these two imaginaries that have …