COURSE 2022-31832-T1

FORMACIÓ EN L'ACTIVITAT INVESTIGADORA (RESEARCH TRAINING)

‘Identity in the 21st century’

David Block

This  short course, consisting of  5 three-hour sessions, is about identity in the 21^st century. While not ignoring the long history of identity as a concept and construct, it focuses primarily on phenomena typical of early 21^st century societies and the way we live now: how we inhabit and are ascribed identities that are gendered, racialised, sexualized, inflected by nationalism, mediated by age and so on, and how we are situated in terms of social class. It is also concerned with meta issues such as (1) how the construct identity articulates with self and subjectivity; (2) the impact of technology on the construction of identity; (3) intersectionality, as the way in which gender, race, sexuality and class overlap and interrelate in the systemic oppression and exploitation experienced by people not in positions of power; and (4) the interrelationship between social structures and individual agency in the shaping of identities in fields of social activity. Most importantly, the course will explore ways of researching identity, examining how Positioning Theory might be expanded so as to capture the myriad issues at work in the ongoing construction of identity. The course is appropriate for students interested in identity across of range of social sciences and humanities disciplines.

Sessions

1          12/04/23         17.00-20.00

2          19/04/23         17.00-20.00

3          26/04/23         17.00-20.00

4          03/05/23         17.00-20.00

5          10/05/23         17.00-20.00

Aula:  52.119

Continguts

• The past and present of identity: What is identity?
• Structure and agency tensions in language and identity research
• Power and intersectionality
• Researching identity
• Infoselves and digital identities
• Class (and class struggle and class warfare) + elites (global, mobile and dominant)
• Neoliberal citizens (new ways of being governed)
• Political identities (labels and activity)
• Language and identity (multilingual identities, English-mediated identities)

Bibliografia

Appiah, K. A. (2018). The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity. London: Profile Books.

Block, D. (2006). Multilingual Identities in a Global City: London Stories. London: Palgrave.

Block, D. (2014 [2007]). Second Language Identities. London: Bloomsbury.

Block, D. (2014). Social Class in Applied Linguistics. London: Routledge.

Block, D. (2022). Issues and Challenges in Identity Research. London: Routledge.

Caldas-Coulthard, C. R., & Iedema, R. (Eds.) (2008). Identity Trouble: Critical Discourse and Contested Identities. London: Palgrave.

Collins, P. H. (2019). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Duke University Press.

Collins, P. H. & Bilge, S. (2020). Intersectionality, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley.  

Coulmas, F. (2019). Identity: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Edwards, J. (2009).  Language and Identity: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Elliot, A. (2019). The Culture of AI: Everyday Life and the Digital Revolution. London: Routledge.

Evans, D. (ed.) (2016). Language and Identity: Discourse in the World. London: Continuum.

Fukuyama, F. (2019). Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. Profile Books.

Higgins, C. (Ed.) (2012). Identity Formation in Globalizing Contexts: Language Learning in the New Millennium. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Jenkins, R. (2014). Social Identity, 4th edition. London: Routledge.

Kayi-Aydar, H. (2019). Positioning Theory in Applied Linguistics: Research Design and Applications. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lawlor, S. (2014). Identity: Sociological Perspectives, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Polity. 

Lin, A. (ed.) (2008). Problematizing identity. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

McNamara, T. (2019) Language and Subjectivity. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Pres

Moran, M. (2015). Identity and Capitalism . London: Sage. 

Norton, B. (2013). Identity and Language Learning Extending the Conversation (2nd edition). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Preece, S. (ed.) 2016). Routledge handbook of language and identity. London: Routledge.