Strangers in a Strange Land

Paul Manning (PhD University of Chicago) is an associate professor of Anthropology at Trent University. His recent publications include “The Epoch of Magna: Capitalist Brands and Postsocialist Revolutions in Georgia” (Slavic Review), “Rose-Colored Glasses? Color Revolutions and Cartoon Chaos in Postsocialist Georgia” (Cultural Anthropology), “Materiality and Cosmology: Old Georgian Churches as Sacred, Sublime, and Secular Objects” (Ethnos).

“This is a sophisticated exploration of the complex and often contradictory elements of nation-building and identity-formation in Georgia in the second half of the nineteenth century. Manning, has an extraordinary understanding of the subtleties of Georgian writing. Drawing on Gerogian newspapers, poetry, and short stories, and focusing on Georgia’s encounters with Europe, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire, he weaves together a complex challenge to the familiar Western tropes of the imagined community. Manning has produced a novel theoretical contribution to our ideas about the role of intellectuals in national identity formation.”