Overview

What if regions were not just governed spaces but imagined ones? Imagining Regions: Hegemony and Emancipation in Europe and Asia offers a fresh perspective on regionalism by shifting the focus from institutional structures to regional imagination—the cultural, ideological, and political visions that conceive of transnational spaces beyond the boundaries of the nation-state. While traditional regional studies emphasize formalized entities like the EU, this book explores regions that exist primarily in the realm of ideas: imagined communities bound by shared language, religion, civilization, or political aspiration. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies from Europe and Asia, the authors investigate how these ideational projects can serve as tools of both hegemony and emancipation. Whether aiming to dominate a region through cultural-political alignment or to liberate marginalized groups through collective identity, regional imaginations reveal the deep entanglement of territory, power, and meaning in global politics. By including the voices of actors without sovereign states and examining regional identities that remain unrealized or contested, this volume expands the conceptual terrain of regionalism. It offers an interdisciplinary exploration of how regions are envisioned, narrated, and potentially realized—not only through governance, but through the persistent human drive to imagine belonging beyond borders.

Full Product Details

Author:   Olga Lomová ,  Zora Hesová
Publisher:   Amsterdam University Press
Imprint:   Amsterdam University Press
ISBN:  

9789463722780

ISBN 10:   9463722785
Pages:   242
Publication Date:   22 April 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Introduction Part I: PROTO-NATIONAL REGIONAL IMAGINATION 1. East or Chinese Turkistan? Pan-Turkism in Uyghur Nation-Building in Xinjiang, 1912 – 1949 2. Between East and West: pan-Islamism in the nationalisation of Bosnian Muslims 3. Residual Pan-Slavism in Putin’s Russia: Communitarian Geopolitics and Populist Ideology 4. Scandinavian: from a Political Category to a Demonym Part II: HEGEMONIC CONSTRUCTIONS OF REGIONS IN EUROPE 5. East of the EU, west of Eurasia: Central and Eastern Europe adrift between the emerging world-systems 6. Regional Imagination between Two Refugee Crises: Emergence and Dissolution of Central Europe as the Visegrad Group, 2015–2022 7.“Western Balkans” - Political Dimensions and Performative Functions of the EU-emitted Discourses toward the Region Part III: IMPERIAL GEOPOLITICS AND REGIONAL IMAGINATION IN ASIA 8. A lofty Asia and the profound East’. Nehru, India, and the ideas of Asia 9. Between China and Japan: the Shifting Center of Asianist Imaginations in Manchukuo, 1932–45 10. “Overseas Chinese” and “Sinophone”: A region in making and breaking

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Author Information

Olga Lomová is Professor of Chinese Literature and Director of the International Sinological Center at Charles University in Prague. She is author and co-author of several research monographs and translations from Chinese. She focuses on medieval Chinese poetry, the history of Chinese literature and of sinology, and the intellectual transformation of China under Western influence in the early 20th century. Zora Hesová is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Charles University, Prague. She works on the Islamic intellectual tradition, modern Islam in Europe, and, more generally, on religion in contemporary politics, with a particular focus on Central and South-Eastern Europe.

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