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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.