Elisa Vitali has a PhD in Linguistic, Literary and Intercultural Studies in European and Extra-European Perspectives from the University of Milan. Her research focuses on Japanese nationalism, with insights from sociology, anthropology and political science. In her doctoral thesis entitled The Rhetoric of Primordialism in Suzuki Takao and Watanabe Shoichi’s Nationalist Discourse, she deals with nationalism theory by challenging primordialism as a category of analysis and the widespread tendency of reifying the concept of nation. Her areas of interests include the history of the idea of ‘nation’ and the cross study of racism in diverse societies.