"Identity" has become a core concept of the social and cultural sciences. Bringing together perspectives from sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, and literary criticism, this book offers a comprehensive and critical overview on how this concept is currently used and how it relates to memory and constructions of historical meaning.

Heidrun Friese has published widely on social theory and time, the anthropology of the sciences, and social imagination. She is currently at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the European University Institute, Florence.

PART I: PERSPECTIVES AND CONCEPTS

Chapter 1. Identity: Desire, Name and DifferenceHeidrun Friese

Chapter 2. Identity and Selfhood as a ProblématiquePeter Wagner

Chapter 3. Personal and Collective Identity: A Conceptual AnalysisJürgen Straub

Chapter 4. Identities of the West: Reason, Myths, Limits of ToleranceBarbara Henry

PART II: REPRESENTATION AND TRANSLATION

Chapter 5. The Praxis of Cognition and Representation of DifferenceMartin Fuchs

Chapter 6. Constructions of Cultural Identity and Problems of TranslationShingo Shimada

PART III: WOMEN AND ALTERITY

Chapter 7. The Performance of HysteriaElisabeth Bronfen

Chapter 8. The 'Jewess Pallas Athena': Horizons of Selfconception in the 19th and 20th Centuries

PART IV: BOUNDARIES AND ETHNICITY

Chapter 9. Collective Identity as a Dual Discursive Construction: Dominant v. Demotic Discourses of Culture and the Negotiation of Historical MemoryGerd Baumann

Chapter 10. Historical Culture in (Post-) Colonial Context: The Genesis of National Identification Figures in Francophone Western AfricaHans-Jürgen Lüsebrink

Chapter 11. Identity as Progress The Longevity of NationalismChristian Geulen

Chapter 12. Culture and History in Comparative FundamentalismEmanuel Sivan

Notes on contributors Bibliography Index