Exploring Identities: Stories We Tell Ourselves

About the course

"Identity" is used in a colloquial, folk-psychological and non-technical way to express our sense of self, inclusive of social roles and the relationships that we cultivate as important. X is, for example, a mother, a university teacher, dividing her life between Sweden and Finland. Identity may involve external characteristics over which we have no control, such as colour or socioeconomic class. Identity also encompasses political opinions, religion, and our moral attitudes. Identities have, further, developed into labels with which we categorise other people, explain our own actions, and by which we are being treated in certain ways by others.

Where do these identities come from? Are they binding? How should we understand the structures and moral repercussions they involve? How could we fruitfully contest them as obliging categories? This course will introduce philosophical questions of "identity" in this sense of the word. Besides theoretical literature, the course uses recent fiction in which layers of identity are portrayed, analysed and questioned. We will also briefly consider the methodological question this raises: what can fiction tell us about identity? Can it complement philosophical writing about the topic and if so, why and how?