Chrono-affective nationalism in higher education: Harvard and the Trump administration

This paper introduces the concept of chrono-affective nationalism to analyze how contemporary nationalist discourse mobilises both emotions and temporal narratives to reshape the symbolic role of higher education. Chrono-affective nationalism refers to nationalist discourse and governance that fuses emotional appeals with temporal narratives to reshape institutional memory, legitimacy, and identity. While existing research often treats affect and temporality separately, this paper argues that their entanglement is crucial for understanding how universities are positioned as sites of national decline, betrayal, or redemption. Using the case of Harvard University and its entanglement with the Trump administration’s nationalist agenda following the 2023 Israel – Gaza war, the paper shows how elite institutions are constructed as emotionally charged symbols of liberal globalism and moral decadence. Chrono-affective nationalism provides a framework for examining how feelings of loss, fear, and pride are woven into temporal imaginaries that demand emotional and ideological alignment from universities. The concept sheds light on the affective-temporal dimensions of political backlash in higher education, with implications for institutional autonomy, academic freedom, and democratic futures.