Despite profound disagreement on whether identities are essential or existential, primordial or constructed, singular or multiple, there is little dispute over whether identities exist or not. In this provocative study, Sinisa Malesevic interrogates the unproblematic use of concepts of identity, and in particular national or ethnic identity.
This critical ethnographic school-based case study offers insights on the interaction between ideology and the identity development of individual English language learners in Singapore. Illustrated by case studies of the language learning experiences of five Asian immigrant students in an English-medium school in Singapore, the author examines how the immigrant students negotiated a standard English ideology and their discursive positioning over the course of the school year. Specifically, the study traces how the prevailing standard English ideology interacted in highly complex ways with their being positioned as high academic achievers to ultimately influence their learning of English. This potent combination of language ideologies and circulating ideologies created a designer student immigration complex. By framing this situation as a complex, the study problematizes the power of ideologies in shaping the trajectories and identities of language learners.
Indian party politics, commonly viewed as chaotic, clientelistic, and corrupt, is nevertheless a model for deepening democracy and accommodating diversity. Historically, though, observers have argued that Indian politics is non-ideological in nature. In contrast, Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma contend that the Western European paradigm of "ideology" is not applicable to many contemporary multiethnic countries. In these more diverse states, the most important ideological debates center on statism-the extent to which the state should dominate and regulate society-and recognition-whether and how the state should accommodate various marginalized groups and protect minority rights from majorities. Using survey data from the Indian National Election Studies and evidence from the Constituent Assembly debates, they show how education, the media, and religious practice transmit the competing ideas that lie at the heart of ideological debates in India.
Since its founding one hundred years ago psychoanalysis has been the focus of contention, controversy, and debate. What has been clear despite all controversies is that the psychoanalytic tradition has created and inspired special modes of critical thinking which have been used to examine both human behavior and corresponding social ideologies. Psychoanalysis, Identity, and Ideology presents papers from a historic two day conference of leading Israeli, Palestinian, and European psychologists held in June of 1999. Sensitive professional and historical dilemmas are discussed with refreshing openness. This collection embodies the tradition of critical thinking applied to ideologies and identities, Zionism in particular, through a non-exclusive prism of psychoanalytic traditions.
In this monograph, Chris Featherman adopts a discourse analytical approach to explore the ways in which social movement ideologies and identities are discursively constructed in new and old media. In the context of his argument, Featherman also considers current debates surrounding the role that technologies play in democracy-building and global activist networks. He engages these critical issues through a case study of the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, looking at both US legacy media coverage of the protests as well as activists’ use of social media. Through qualitative analysis of a corpus of activists’ Twitter tweets and Flickr uploads, Featherman argues that activists’ social media discourses and protesters’ symbolic and tactical borrowing of global English contribute to micronarratives of globalization, while also calling into question master narratives about Iran commonly found in mainstream Western media accounts. This volume makes a timely contribution to discussions regarding the relationship between cyber-rhetoric and democracy, and provides new directions for researchers engaging with the influence of new media on globalized vernaculars of English.
The Psychology of Globalization: Identity, Ideology, and Action underpins the necessity to focus on the psychological dimensions of globalization. Overviewing the theory and empirical research as it relates to globalization and psychology, the book focuses on two key domains: social identity and collective action, and political ideology and attitudes. These provide frameworks for addressing four specific topics: (a) environmental challenges, (b) consumer culture, (c) international security, and (d) transnational migration and intra-national cultural diversification. Arguing that individual social representation and behavior are altered by globalizing processes while they simultaneously contribute to these processes, the authors explore economic, political and cultural dimensions.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade." —David Brooks In this controversial bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life. From the inside, American churches have been hollowed out by the departure of young people and by an insipid pseudo–Christianity. From the outside, they are beset by challenges to religious liberty in a rapidly secularizing culture. Keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House may have bought a brief reprieve from the state’s assault, but it will not stop the West’s slide into decadence and dissolution. Rod Dreher argues that the way forward is actually the way back—all the way to St. Benedict of Nursia. This sixth-century monk, horrified by the moral chaos following Rome’s fall, retreated to the forest and created a new way of life for Christians. He built enduring communities based on principles of order, hospitality, stability, and prayer. His spiritual centers of hope were strongholds of light throughout the Dark Ages, and saved not just Christianity but Western civilization. Today, a new form of barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it, and their churches are too weak to resist. Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis. What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church. The goal: to embrace exile from mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture. The Benedict Option is both manifesto and rallying cry for Christians who, if they are not to be conquered, must learn how to fight on culture war battlefields like none the West has seen for fifteen hundred years. It's for all mere Christians—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox—who can read the signs of the times. Neither false optimism nor fatalistic despair will do. Only faith, hope, and love, embodied in a renewed church, can sustain believers in the dark age that has overtaken us. These are the days for building strong arks for the long journey across a sea of night.
The New England Journal of Medicine is one of the most important general medical journals in the world. Doctors rely on the conclusions it publishes, and most do not have the time to look beyond abstracts to examine methodology or question assumptions. Many of its pronouncements are conveyed by the media to a mass audience, which is likely to take them as authoritative. But is this trust entirely warranted? Theodore Dalrymple, a doctor retired from practice, turned a critical eye upon a full year of the Journal, alert to dubious premises and to what is left unsaid. In False Positive, he demonstrates that many of the papers it publishes reach conclusions that are not only flawed, but obviously flawed. He exposes errors of reasoning and conspicuous omissions apparently undetected by the editors. In some cases, there is reason to suspect actual corruption. When the Journal takes on social questions, its perspective is solidly politically correct. Practically no debate on social issues appears in the printed version, and highly debatable points of view go unchallenged. The Journal reads as if there were only one possible point of view, though the American medical profession (to say nothing of the extensive foreign readership) cannot possibly be in total agreement with the stances taken in its pages. It is thus more megaphone than sounding board. There is indeed much in the New England Journal of Medicine that deserves praise and admiration. But this book should encourage the general reader to take a constructively critical view of medical news and to be wary of the latest medical doctrines.