|
This seminar focuses a reflexive and critical anthropological lens on contemporary identity politics. The module samples historical genealogies of identities today, as well as philosophical, social scientific, and historical analyses of how ‘the self’ has come to be a key problem in contemporary society. We will review several of the dominant frameworks that shape contemporary identity politics, including multiculturalism and the politics of recognition, representation and cultural appropriation, inequality and intersectionality, and so on. Moving from the emergent norms and forms that make identity intelligible as a political problem, the seminar also focuses on activist strategies and tactics in this area. Substantial attention will be given to anti-racist activism in Ireland, the US, and elsewhere, as well as to the mutating global politics of gender and sexuality, including especially queer and trans* perspectives.
|