Centre for the Study of Global Nationalisms (CSGN)

• Associate professor Georg Walter Wink, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies (director)
• Associate professor Jørn Boisen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies (Co-coordinator).
• Associate professor Anna Lena Sandberg, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies
• Professor Janus Mortensen, Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP)
• Associate professor Mogens Pelt, Saxo Institute
• Professor Rasmus Glenthøj, University of Southern Denmark
• Postdoc Nicolaj von Eggers Mariegaard, Aarhus University
• Professor Gabriella Elgenius, University of Gothenburg
• Senior Researcher Joana-Isabel Duyster Borreda, University of Heidelberg, Stiftung Ebert Gedenkstätte

Lifeworlds of the New Right: Identities, Imaginaries and Idioms of the Global New Right in Everyday Contexts (DFF Explorative Network, 2026-2028)

Coordinator: Georg Wink, Department for English, Germanic and Romances Studies

This explorative network, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark, develops new interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives on the life worlds of the so-called ‘New Right’ in Europe and beyond. In the 21st century, the Far Right has invested mainly in a ‘culture war’ of promoting illiberal ideas. These have already entered the political mainstream and New Right ideologies will become even more powerful in the upcoming years. We contribute to better understand this democratic backsliding by looking beyond the political and discovering what makes the New Right culturally so fashionable. How do ideas build collective identities? What imaginaries do they evoke? How are these communicated through cultural idioms? The network consists of five departments at the University of Copenhagen, the Danish Institute for International Studies, and partners at the Universities of Roskilde, Aarhus and Gothenburg. In workshops with invited international experts we will identify the key problems and elaborate theoretical and methodological approaches to solve them. Scientific findings will be shared through open access working papers, articles, an edited volume, and a conference. To make our insights available to everybody, we will create two online tools in collaboration with UCPH’s Centre for Digital and Computational Humanities: an interactive map of the global New Right and an annotated bibliography of New Right sources, including full texts which users can explore critically through the AI chatbot application “Talk to the books”.

Associated Researchers:

• Georg Wink (University of Copenhagen, Department for English, Germanic and Romances Studies
• Mikhail Suslov (University of Copenhagen, Department for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies)
• Charlie Krautwald (University of Copenhagen, Saxo Institute)
• Mikkel Bolt (University of Copenhagen, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies)
• Jun Liu (University of Copenhagen, Department of Communication)
• Manni Crone (Danish Institute for International Studies DIIS)
• Somdeep Sen (Roskilde University, Department of Social Sciences and Business)
• Nicolai von Eggers Mariegaard (Aarhus University)
• Gabriella Elgenius (University of Gothenburg, Department of Sociology and Work Science)

Far right thought in a global perspective: traditionalist reactions to Western liberal modernity (HUM:Global Flagship Initiative 2025-2026)

Coordinator: Georg Wink, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Languages

This project has received funding from the HUM:Global Flagship Initiative. The goal of this Flagship is to strengthen the investigation of far-right ideologies by creating research infrastructure and attracting external funding. During the academic year 2025/2026, the project organized invited expert talks, seminars and internal workshops to explore and delimit the broader field of “Globalized Anti-Modernism”, elaborated research plans and identified funding opportunities. The first grant which this Flagship attracted is the DFF Explorative Network Grant (see above) while others are under evaluation and in preparation.

Associated researchers:

• Georg Wink (University of Copenhagen, Department for English, Germanic and Romances Studies)
• Tim Rudbøg (University of Copenhagen, Department for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies)
• Mikhail Suslov (University of Copenhagen, Department for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies)
• Mikkel Bolt (University of Copenhagen, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies)
• Jun Liu (University of Copenhagen, Department of Communication)
• Atreyee Sen (University of Copenhagen, Department of Anthropology)
• Somdeep Sen (Roskilde University, Department of Social Sciences and Business)
• Manni Crone (Danish Institute for International Studies DIIS)
• Hjalmar Falk (University of Gothenburg, Faculty of Education)
• Gabriella Elgenius (University of Gothenburg, Department of Sociology and Work Science)

Nation, Geopolitics and Imperialism

Coordinator: Mogens Pelt, Saxo Institute

Associated researchers:

• Rasmus Glenthøj
• Nicolai von Eggers Mariegaard

Nationalism, nostalgia, and the resurgence of the Radical Right

Coordinator: Gabriella  Elgenius, University of Gothenburg

The cluster on nationalism, nostalgia, and the resurgence of the Radical Right  addresses the realignment processes from center-left to the populist  nationalist and radical right in Europe and elsewhere. This important  societal change has had significant consequences for governance and policy  making. Since populist radical right parties tend to side with  center-right parties the realignment and increased support for the  populist radical right have contributed to shifting policies toward the right. Components of ethnic nationalism, populism and  nostalgia stand out as significant. Nostalgia – the history of decline  and loss – is utilized by proponents of both the right and the left, and  the ethnic substance of nationalist nostalgia is of particular importance alongside its populist elements. Nationalist  nostalgia capitalizes on loss, idealization, and resentment and its  contested nature may be brought out through anti-migrant frames. A  central mechanism is the juxtaposition and unfavorable comparison between an idealized glorious past, a decaying present, and  the creation of a utopian future, that in many ways resemble Christian  narratives of fall and redemption. Comparative research and the use of  different methodologies and mixed methods are needed to fully explore various dimensions and components of the Radical  Right. 

Responsible researcher

Gabriella  Elgenius is Professor of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg, and  she is the Co-Director of the Swedish Research Councils Graduate School of Migration and  Integration (2023 -2028). Elgenius’ research is comparative,  multi-cited, multi-, and mixed method within two main fields political  sociology and migration and integration studies. She is working on several projects on the resurgence of the Radical Right in Europe,  ethnic nationalism, and nostalgia, and on migration and integration  tackling the multi-dimensional nature of integration, civil society in  conditions of socio-economic challenge and diversity and Citizen or Community Research (Swedish Research Council VR, Forte,  Formas, ESRC, JPI Urban Europe). Elgenius has also been researching  diaspora discourse, national museums and nation-building and national  symbolism (British Academy, John Fell, RJ, AHRC, ECR). She was a Marie Curie Fellow at the London School of Economics  2000-2005 and later received a British Academy Fellowship at the  University of Oxford (2007-2011). She is currently a Fellow of the Royal  Society of Arts and Associate Member of the University of Oxford.

The Republic of Newsletters: International Republicanism in the Making of Democratic Political Cultures, 1815-1840

Coordinator: Nicolaj von Eggers Mariegaard (DFF Sapere Aude Project at Aarhus University)

The project is about the emergence of democratic culture in the early 19th century across the Atlantic and Mediterranean world and the role international exchange of ideas played in it. It examines the transition from what has been called "the republic of letters", which was an international exchange of ideas between Enlightenment philosophers in the 18th century, to what I will call "the republic of newsletters", where new political ideas are particularly carried forward by a new type of intellectuals such as journalists who are in close international contact with each other. The project explores how ideas travel, and how new and revolutionary political systems emerge with inspiration from each other. The project also focuses on the voices of the excluded (women, enslaved, landless) and their struggle for inclusion. The countries studied are Haiti, Colombia, France and Greece. The expected results will give us a more nuanced picture of modern democracy and its history, especially by focusing on the role that often overlooked actors such as women, the enslaved and the landless played in the formation of democracy. They will also demonstrate the important role of international connections and mutual inspiration across borders for the rise of modern democracies.

Nationalism and Language – Sociolinguistic Perspectives

Coordinator: Janus Mortensen, Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP)

• Georg Wink (University of Copenhagen, Department for English, Germanic and Romances Studies)
• Jørn Boisen (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Anna Lena Sandberg (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Aurelio Poles (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Alexandre Gernigon (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Nikolaj Bjerggaard Olesen (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Lasse Kræmmer (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Mads Jedzini (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Efram Sera-Shriar (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Morten Rievers Heiberg (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Dorte Lønsmann (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Nieves Hernándes-Flores (University of Copenhagen, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies)
• Line Nybro Petersen (University of Copenhagen, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics)
• Charlie Krautwald (University of Copenhagen, Saxo Institute)
• Juliane Engelhardt (University of Copenhagen, Saxo Institute)
• Ulf Hedetoft (University of Copenhagen, Saxo Institute)
• Mikhail Suslov (University of Copenhagen, Department for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies)
• Tim Rudbøg (University of Copenhagen, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies) 
• Tea Sindbæk Andersen (University of Copenhagen, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies)
• Jun Liu (University of Copenhagen, Department of Communication)
• Miklós Sükösd (University of Copenhagen, Department of Communication)
• Niels Holtug (University of Copenhagen, Department of Communication)
• Mikkel Bolt (University of Copenhagen, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies)
• Atreyee Sen (University of Copenhagen, Department of Anthropology)
• Benedikte Brincker (University of Copenhagen, Department of Sociology)
• Jakob Dreyer (University of Copenhagen, Department of Political Science)
• Manni Crone (Danish Institute for International Studies DIIS)
• Somdeep Sen (Roskilde University, Department of Social Sciences and Business)
• Gabriella Elgenius (University of Gothenburg) 
• Hjalmar Falk (University of Gothenburg, Faculty of Education)

• PhD fellow Alejandro Ayala-Wold (University of Bergen) 
• Postdoctoral researcher Amedeo Varriale (University of East London) 
• Postdoctoral researcher Nik Hasif (National University of Malaysia) 
• Postdoctoral researcher Agustín Conde de Boeck (National University of Córdoba, Argentina) 
• Postdoctoral researcher Filipe Queiroz (Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil) 
• Adjunct professor Fabio Ferrarini (University of Milan) 
• Elias Stumpf (Internship student)