The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves
Cambridge University Press, 8/30/2012
EAN 9781107027657, ISBN10: 1107027659
Hardcover, 444 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.9 cm
Language: English
We are multiple, fragmented, and changing selves who, nevertheless, believe we have unique and consistent identities. What accounts for this illusion? Why has the problem of identity become so central in post-war scholarship, fiction, and the media? Following Hegel, Richard Ned Lebow contends that the defining psychological feature of modernity is the tension between our reflexive and social selves. To address this problem Westerners have developed four generic strategies of identity construction that are associated with four distinct political orientations. Lebow develops his arguments through comparative analysis of ancient and modern literary, philosophical, religious, and musical texts. He asks how we might come to terms with the fragmented and illusionary nature of our identities and explores some political and ethical implications of doing so.
1. Introduction
2. Narratives and identity
3. Homer, Virgil, and identity
4. Mozart and the Enlightenment
5. Germans and Greeks
6. Beam me up, Lord
7. Science fiction and immortality
8. Identity reconsidered.
Advance praise: 'In this remarkable book, Lebow offers a sustained critique of contemporary conceptions of identity in the social sciences, arguing that both the existence of unitary identities and the differential logic invoked to explain their formation lack empirical support. [He] then develops an alternative account that emphasizes the fluid character of identities, and the integrative aspects of identity formation. As such, The Politics and Ethics of Identity is indispensable reading to all social scientists who have thought seriously about identity.' Jens Bartelson, Lund University