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Once
associated with the politics of liberation, identity has since become a more private
and individualistic affair: about what we buy and how we look. This book is about
rethinking the idea of the individual and ethical life 'after identity'. It addresses
these questions in a series of essays - on being an individual; why people fear
and hate asylum seekers; memories of England; masculinity and the war on terror;
climate change and ecological ethics; and the revolution in ageing.
'There has been thus
far no better inventory made of the human consequences of individualisation, and
the price which individuals are required to pay for their freedom of self-assertion
in a world vacated by the past and denying hospitality to the future. Rutherford
has set and furnished the stage on which all debate of the present-day human condition
and its prospect will need to be conducted.' Zygmunt Bauman
'Jonathan Rutherford's consideration of those essential issues - the self,
identity - is always thought provoking. Even better, it carries an unusual and
heartening optimism.' Madeleine Bunting
'The problems the thinking left face are complex. Modern consumer capitalism
is busily shaping us in its image and destroying the ability to even imagine a
different way of being human. Jonathan Rutherford faces up to the complexity of
this challenge by using relevant and impressive high theory but does so in a way
that is intensely political and immediate.' Neal Lawson
Jonathan Rutherford is Professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University. He is the editor of Soundings and author of a number of books on race, gender and ethics.