Identity, concepts, theories, history and present realities (a European overview) vol. I

Abstract

The identity discourse has a tragic history in Europe (both inside frontiers and outside our own geographic space). The first part of this reflection will try to present an overview about some of the most important literary, political and philosophical theories of this concept which is particularly connected to the understanding of the Other in Contemporary Europe. In a second part we will aim to discuss the importance, the need and the utility of such a concept in our multicultural Europe that has ambiguous and contradictory discourses about its own cultural identity/ies. We also will try to compare European Contemporary European perspectives on this issue with other ways of understanding identity in other continents as Africa, America or Asia, in order to develop and bring more complexity, ductility and also theoretical and practical deepness to this concept. Finally we underline the main contributions of the essays that compose this book, each one contributing to draw a complex, wider and deeper picture of the possibilities that the concept, theory and history of identity may raise in different European cultural, historical and geographical contexts.