Abschnittsübersicht

  • Culture, diaspora, and identity:

    Stuart Hall and Salman Rushdie


    Before the session, please read the essays 'Imaginary Homelands' (Rushdie, 1982) and 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora' (Hall, 1990).

    For further reference and interest, I've also attached two further essays by Hall, which help to contextualize questions of identity and diaspora in relation to the paradoxical processes of globalization.


    Questions for reading and discussion:

    1. There are different ways of thinking about ‘identity’, according to Stuart Hall. Please identify and define them.
    2. What role do ‘difference’, and ‘différance’, play in the construction of both collective and individual identities? See if you can find examples from each of the essays.
    3. What does Stuart Hall mean when he talks about the different ‘presences’ in Caribbean culture and identity?
    4. Can we ever rediscover and recover, our lost ‘points’ or ‘places’ of origin’? Or is the very idea of lost points of origin a convenient and comforting iction that we all construct for ourselves?