Lecture
Reading For Love of Country; Hesam Salamat
This eight-session series is dedicated to reading and explicating the book For Love of Country by Maurizio Viroli. In these lectures, Hesam Salamat addresses the distinction between republican patriotism and nationalism, and examines the relationship between homeland, freedom, the people, and civic responsibility.
About this video
This video is the beginning of an eight-session series on the book For Love of Country by Maurizio Viroli; a book published in Persian translation by Mehdi Nasrollahzadeh by Bidgol Publishing. The central focus of this series is the reading and explanation of one of the important debates in contemporary political thought: the difference between patriotism, nationalism, and republican love of country.
In these sessions, drawing on Viroli's text, Hesam Salamat demonstrates that love of country is not necessarily synonymous with nationalism, ethnic supremacism, or nostalgia. In the republican tradition, patriotism is tied to freedom, the common good, law, citizenship, and responsibility toward the people of a land. From this perspective, the homeland is not merely soil and borders; it is the people who forge a shared destiny, shared freedom, and the possibility of collective life.
The importance of this discussion is doubled in an era when, on one hand, exclusionary nationalisms and xenophobia have grown worldwide, and on the other, indifference, social fragmentation, and extreme individualism have weakened the possibility of civic solidarity. Reading For Love of Country is an opportunity to rethink how one can both love one's homeland and defend the freedom, plurality, and dignity of citizens.
This series is suitable for those interested in political philosophy, republicanism, nationalism, patriotism, freedom, democracy, and Iran's relationship with modern political concepts.
