This article explores Bernard Stiegler’s concept of Epiphylogenesis as an alternative framework for understanding modern nations while aspiring to resolve major gaps in the classic theories of Benedict Anderson and Anthony Smith. Epiphylogenesis offers a fresh perspective and broader scope for the study of nations, with a view to critically enlarging the dynamic interaction between modern mass media and cultural traditions, particularly as conceptualized by Anderson and Smith. Stiegler classifies modern nations as chapters in the broader narrative of technical evolution. In epiphylogenesis, cultural traditions and technical artefacts function as a working partnership; modern nations are seen as the outcome of this co-constitutive process, wherein mass media technical systems (that is, print capitalism) exteriorize cultural traditions (ethnié), dressing them up in distinctive, open, pervasive, and standardized forms. This discussion concludes by exploring the relevance of epiphylogenesis for assessing the impact of networked communications on contemporary national identities.

I submit the need to establish a comparative study of societies, namely groups beyond a simple, immediate family that have the potential to endure for generations, whose constituent individuals recognize one another as members, and that maintain control over access to a physical space. This definition, with refinements and ramifications I explore, serves for cross-disciplinary research since it applies not just to nations but to diverse hunter-gatherer and tribal groups with a pedigree that likely traces back to the societies of our common ancestor with the chimpanzees. It also applies to groups among other species for which comparison to humans can be instructive. Notably, it describes societies in terms of shared group identification rather than social interactions. An expansive treatment of the topic is overdue given that the concept of a society (even the use of such synonyms as primate “troop”) has fallen out of favor among biologists, resulting in a semantic mess; while sociologists rarely consider societies beyond nations, and social psychologists predominantly focus on ethnicities and other component groups of societies. I examine the relevance of societies across realms of inquiry, discussing the ways member recognition is achieved; how societies compare to other organizational tiers; and their permeability, territoriality, relation to social networks and kinship, and impermanence.

We have diverged from our ancestors in generating numerous affiliations within and between societies while straining the expectation of society memberships by assimilating diverse populations. Nevertheless, if, as I propose, societies were the first, and thereafter the primary, groups of prehistory, how we came to register society boundaries may be foundational to all human “groupiness.” A discipline-spanning approach to societies should further our understanding of what keeps societies together and what tear them apart.

Prime ministers often use vernacularisms in their political rhetoric, but we know little about how they deploy these forms of speech and the consequences for politics and policy. This article extends work on the ‘rhetorical PM’ by focusing on how leaders deploy idiomatic expressions in their oratory. The article presents a thematic analysis of four successive Australian prime ministers' use of the country's distinctive ‘fair go’ expression in speeches and media interviews between 1972 and 1996. Australian PMs increasingly invoked the ‘fair go’ expression throughout this period for multiple rhetorical purposes, including to make national identity claims, engage in partisan competition and justify policy reforms with strong neoliberal elements. While prevailing scholarship sees ‘vernacular politics’ as a tool of grassroots actors opposing discourses of globalization and elite-driven reform, this research shows the vernacular is a versatile rhetorical tool mobilized by elites for multiple purposes, including to justify radical policy change.

Bachata has used mass media throughout its history to foster a sense of inclusion and community among fans, from Radio Guarachita in the 1960s to livestreaming on social media in the twenty-first century. This article considers how the Dominican Facebook Live program, El Tieto eShow, continues bachata’s intimate relationship with mass media through the creation and development of a virtual imagined community of bachata enthusiasts around the globe. The article explores how the cultural roots of the imagined community—the decline of sacred languages and societal high centers and the acceptance of calendrical over sacred time—contribute to this sense of group among El Tieto eShow’s worldwide audience. It also considers the importance of this type of virtual fan community in propagating a sense of proximity to each other and musicians.

On China's web, networked actors ranging from state agencies to private Internet users engage in highly active online discourse. Yet as diverse as this discourse may be, political content remains highly regulated, particularly on issues that affect the legitimacy of the ruling party. A prominent issue in this regard has been modern Chinese history, particularly the “national humiliation” that Japan inflicted on China's populace during events like the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. This article asks how the discourse on this particular event is structured on China's web, and what such practices of digital “remembering” can tell us about nationalism in the information age. Combining content analysis and digital tools, the article shows how the mass-media model that the Chinese authorities and various commercial actors apply to the web ultimately reproduces the very logic of “imagined communities” that makes reconciliation of historical disputes in East Asia so protracted.

‘Trends’ in the field of Southeast Asian history have a way of being unresolved satisfactorily before ‘new’ ones emerge to take their place. Part of the reason is that older scholarship is not only considered passé, but each new generation of Southeast Asianists wants to ‘make its mark’ on the field in original ways. Yet, when one scrutinizes some of these ‘new’ issues carefully, they often turn out not to be entirely so; rather, they appear to be different ways of approaching and/or expressing older ones, using different (and more current) operating vocabulary. ‘Angle of vision’ and ‘perspective’, popular in the 1960s, have become ‘privileging of’ or ‘giving agency to’ in current usage, while their methodological intent is exactly the same, bearing the same (or nearly the same) desirable consequences. Older, seminal scholarship is often only given lip-service without much in-depth consideration, so that some of the ‘new’ scholarship begins ‘in the middle of the game’, scarcely acknowledging (or knowing) what had transpired earlier. This unawareness regarding the ‘lineage’ of Southeast Asia scholarship fosters some reinvention and repetition of issues and problems without realizing it, in turn protracting their resolution. So as not to lose sight of this ‘scholarly lineage’ that not only allows a better assessment of what are genuinely new trends and what are not, but also to resolve unresolved issues and move on to really new things, this essay will analyse and discuss where the field of Southeast Asian history has been, where it is currently, and where it might be headed. Although focused on the discipline of history, it remains ensconced within the context of the larger field of Southeast Asian studies.