4609360: FU_"What is Identity?"

Beschreibung

What influence has people's identity on how they are leading their everyday lives? How they relate to others by feeling either close to or distant from them? What consumption practices they engage in? How people arrange the physical space around them? What they perceive to be their place in the world? The course starts out from the observation that, over the last decades, identity has become one of the most central categories in social life - for example, by motivating people to engage in specific types of action, giving rise to wars in identity's name, and serving for processes of social inclusion and exclusion. Yet, identity is also an elusive and highly contested category. Identities are not fixed and stable but are socially constructed and transforming over time, thus making it difficult, if not impossible, to determine who someone 'really' is. Also, in many cases, there are tensions between what identity a group of actors claims to have and what identity they are ascribed to by outsiders. Claims about identity therefore often take the form of controversial 'identity politics'. All of these issues make pertinent the vexing question at the centre of this course: What do we mean when we talk about 'identity'?

Lernergebnisse

• In-depth knowledge about the topics and theories discussed in the course
• Capacity to interpret research findings in the light of different theoretical perspectives
• Skills in engaging in academic discussions
• Skills in developing scientific lines of argumentation
• Training in giving oral presentations during class
• Skills in writing academic texts (mid-term essays)

Lehrmethoden

Lecture elements in combination with student presentations and text-based discussions within class

Literatur

Hall, Stuart 1992. The Question of Identity. In Modernity and Its Futures: Understanding Modern Societies,
edited by Hall, Stuart, David Held & Tony McGrew. Cambridge: Polity, 274-280.

Required reading will be announced in the beginning of the semester term.

Kommentar

Fakultätsübergreifendes Wahlfach:
Es gelten spezielle Anmeldemodalitäten.