Identity Crises: A Social Critique Of Postmodernity

by Robert G. Dunn

A readable analysis of postmodernity that provides a cultural context for its rise. Though the term "postmodern" looms large on our cultural landscape, rarely do we find a systematic and impartial discussion of the circumstances of its ascendance. Identity Crises offers just such an accounting. In this book, Robert G. Dunn situates the intellectual currency of "the postmodern" within the larger context of social and cultural change shaping the movement over the past several decades. Along the way, he offers a necessary corrective to both the sociological and historical shortcomings of cultural criticism and the cultural myopia of social science in considering the postmodern world. Dunn explains contemporary culture and contemporary cultural criticism as part of a distinct historical moment, one that entails new social relations as a consequence of new means of production. In place of prevailing cultural and political constructions, Dunn proposes a "social relational" approach that explicitly recognizes the structural and situational contexts of identity formation. He conceptualizes issues of identity and difference in terms of social, cultural, and political transformations in the transition from modern to postmodern society. This provides a socio-historical perspective through which to consider the impact of consumption, mass media, globalization, and new social movements on identity-forming processes. Unique to this undertaking and crucial to Dunn's critique of poststructuralist and postmodern theories is his application of the theory of George Herbert Mead as a more effective means of theorizing identity and difference. Dunn's focus on postmodernity as opposed topostmodernism serves to ground the analysis of identity and difference materially and socially. Learned, evenhanded, and enlightening, Identity Crises is an essential demonstration of the connections between cultural theory and criticism, contemporary culture, and sociological analysis.

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Erkan Saka · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the readers interested in postmodernism/postmodernity the book provides you a very good literature review in the first chapters. You can benefit from that as long as you ignore a tone in the writing that seems to reduce all postmodern theoretical formulations to some political economic formulas.
Another issue is that despite the plurality in literature, the author seems to simplify postmodernism into a single-headed school of thought.
However, when it comes to Chapter 6 where Meadian School of Pragmatism introduced, tone of writing totally changes: it becomes more dense and sophisticated. I believe this chapter is the most interesting chapter where you get less sense of any kind of reductionism....

[sadra jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

کوشش دان در این کتاب ترسیم و معرفی چهره تازه ای از جامعه شناسی معرفت و پیشنهادن آن به عنوان روش و مبنایی برای نقد اجتماعی و فرهنگی بود نگاه بالنسبه جامع الاطراف كتاب حاضر به ویژگی های برجسته و متمایز نمای پست مدرنیته، تلاش در راستای کاوشی عارضه شناسانه در ابعاد مختلف مسئلۀ هویت بود درست است که مباحث این کتاب به معنای متعارف کلمه جامعه شناختی ،نبوده با این حال دان در خلال این مباحث در صدد پی ریزی شالوده ای اجتماعی - تاریخی برای تجزیه و تحلیل مسائل مربوط به هویت و تفاوت بود تا موضوعات مطرح در پست مدرنیسم را به مجموعه ای از مسائل تحلیلی در پست مدرنیته به معنای مجموعه ای از اوضاع و احوال ،فرهنگی، اجتماعی و سیاسی مبدل سازد.

[maile · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dense, if you like density when it's speaking of identity, read it.