Research Interests
One particular question fuels my scholarly research and writing: How do multiethnic societies create strong ties that encourage its citizens to see themselves as one people, despite the differences in their heritage(s)?
The creation of such ties across ethnic lines stand as a countervailing force against chauvinism and prejudice, against seeing those of different backgrounds as alien and, too often, inferior. Such ties emphasize our common humanity and can, as long as those societies also allow for its citizens to maintain their ethnic, cultural, and/or religious identities, bring about a unity among those citizens that can exist harmoniously with diversity.
My most recent research focuses on the multiethnic society in which I live, the United States of America. I am currently working on a book that examines American national identity today. In 2005 I published two articles in The New Republic (online) that identified parallels between 'radical multiculturalism' and 'the Christian Right' on the question of pluralism in America. The first piece examined broad ideological similarities between the two movements, explaining that both reject a conception of American identity that emphasizes unity while making room for diversity. The second New Republic piece further explored the themes of the first by comparing two specific examples: the fight in Dover, PA over teaching creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes, and the clash in Philadelphia over requiring all public school students to take a year long class in African-American history. Another recent piece, published by History News Network, analyzed immigration and American nationhood, and asserted that our society needs to take strong measures to help integrate immigrants into American society, both to help them succeed and in order to strengthen American unity. Most recently, in July 2009, I published two opinion pieces on related themes. The first, which Newsday printed, discussed how Americans might come to consensus on racial preferences. The second, which explored controversial (to some) remarks that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor made and their impact on race relations, appeared in the Post Star.
In addition to this recent work on contemporary America, my research training and the bulk of my publications have examined the textbook example of a failed pluralist state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My first book, titled Imagining an Austrian Nation (East European Monographs; distributed by Columbia University Press, 2003), examined the attempt to cultivate a common Austrian identity that could bring together the many peoples of the Habsburg Monarchy. I have published a number of other articles on related themes as well, including one in 2008 and two in 2009 that have or will appear in academic journals, and continue to research these issues in Habsburg Austrian history. One of these articles, “Francis Joseph's Fatal Mistake: The Consequences of Rejecting Kremsier/Kroměříž,” offers an analysis of the consequences on Austrian society and the broader development of national identities in Central and Eastern Europe in subsequent decades of the Austrian Emperor's counter-revolution in 1849 and his abrogation of the revolutionary Constitution written by the Parliament at Kremsier/Kroměříž that year. This piece was published in the journal Nationalities Papers later in 2009.