Questions of Cultural Identity

SAGE Publications

Stuart Hall, Paul du Gay, Stuart Hall, Paul du Gay

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 1996
• Print ISBN:
  9780803978836
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781446229200
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Why and how do contemporary questions of culture so readily become highly charged questions of identity? The question of cultural identity lies at the heart of current debates in cultural studies and social theory. At issue is whether those identities which defined the social and cultural world of modern societies for so long - distinctive identities of gender, sexuality, race, class and nationality - are in decline, giving rise to new forms of identification and fragmenting the modern individual as a unified subject.

Questions of Cultural Identity offers a wide-ranging exploration of this issue. Stuart Hall firstly outlines the reasons why the question of identity is so compelling and yet so problematic. The cast of outstanding contributors then interrogate different dimensions of the crisis of identity; in so doing, they provide both theoretical and substantive insights into different approaches to understanding identity.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: Who Needs ‘Identity’?
• 2 From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short History of Identity
• 3 Enabling Identity?: Biology, Choice and the New Reproductive Technologies
• 4 Culture’s In-Between
• 5 Interrupting Identities: Turkey/Europe
• 6 Identity and Cultural Studies – Is That All There Is?
• 7 Music and Identity
• 8 Identity, Genealogy, History
• 9 Organizing Identity: Entrepreneurial Governance and Public Management
• 10 The Citizen and the Man About Town
• Index