Identity: A Reader [Paperback]

Identity provides an essential resource of key statements drawn from cultural studies, sociology, and psychoanalytic theory, and includes three editorial essays, which place the readings in their theoretical and historical context.

Divided into three parts: Language, Ideology and Discourse; Psychoanalysis and Psycho-Social Relations; and Identity, Sociology and History, this book invites readers to compare and contrast cultural studies approaches with psychoanalytic and historical and sociological accounts of identity formation.

Identity provides an essential resource of key statements drawn from cultural studies, sociology, and psychoanalytic theory, and includes three editorial essays, which place the readings in their theoretical and historical context.

Divided into three parts: Language, Ideology and Discourse; Psychoanalysis and Psycho-Social Relations; and Identity, Sociology and History, this book invites readers to compare and contrast cultural studies approaches with psychoanalytic and historical and sociological accounts of identity formation.

`This ability to raise so many interesting themes and questions is precisely one of the strengths of this Reader. Another is a choice of contributions based on an historical perspective that enables us to trace some of the main threads in the debate over identity in a variety of disciplines in the last fifty years. In conclusion: an invaluable tool for scholars in the field' - Discourse & Society

Identity is one of the most overused but least considered terms in the lexicon of the contemporary humanities and social sciences. This volume brings together many of the key texts that will contribute to a more thoughtful understanding of the many issues involved in this elusive and deceptively difficult concept. The editors are not merely i