Identity Lecture

Essentialism is the traditional approach to identity. It looks at:

• The soul/biological makeup
• Phrenology (parts of the brain)
• Physiognomy (correct proportion; read someone by the way they look

Pre-modern

People were defined by their long-standing roles, institutions determined peoples identity for example marriage, the church, your trade etc. 

Modern

This was the enlightenment period, (the 19th- early 20th century)

Three scholars to look at in this period were:

• Charles Baudelaire (1863)
• Thorstein Veblen (1899)
• Gerog Simmel (1903)

Simmel said that there was a trickle down theory between the classes; the lower classes would try to copy the upper, but in cheaper and more demeaning ways. Simmel's book 'The metropolis of mental life' talked about the separation from subjective to objective life.

Post Modern

This era focused more on the fragmented self and how identity can be  constructed through our social experience. In this era, 'discourses' were seen to define our identities. Discourses are 'a set of recurring statements that define a particular cultural object' for example age, race, gender etc.

Scholars in this period:

• Erving Goffman
• Zygmunt Bauman 
• Tom Hodgkinson
• Micheale Faucault