| Identity has grown in importance as a political theme while traditional ways of thinking about individuals and selves, for example, with concepts of the subject and of consciousness, have fallen into disfavor. We need a social conception of such notions as self, identity, individuality, and association and we need a conception of social being that casts these notions in historical and conflictual terms, i.e., in terms adequate to politics. Can a the idea of a struggle for recognition provide such a conception? Can such an idea be developed to accommodate the values of democracy and human rights, and thus avoid the narrow particularism so often attributed to identity politics? Beside discussing such general conceptual issues, participants in the seminar will develop and report on projects that address specific cases of identity and politics. |