SY2020:04
Individual Identity and Social Solidarity
Townsville, Cairns
Prerequisites: SY2002 or SY2021
Inadmissable Subject Combination: SY3007
26 lectures, 24 tutorials. Second semester.
Staff: Professor S Crook.
Fears that the individualism of contemporary culture is incompatible with social solidarity, are common in the advanced societies today. They are linked to complaints that individuals are increasingly stressed by their isolation from traditional forms of community support. The first section of the subject shows that sociology has been articulating anxieties about the ‘fit’ between individual and community in modern societies from its inception. The main strands of argument are distinguished and assessed. The second section of the subject links contemporary anxieties about identity and solidarity to earlier versions. It is structured around five models of the self that are influential in contemporary culture: the corporeal self, the consuming self, the communicating self, the calculating self and the committed self. It is argued that the processes that produce a renewed emphasis on individual identity have also generated new forms and sites of social solidarity.
Learning Objectives:
- identify major models of identity and solidarity current in contemporary culture;
- recognise the ways these models inform the experiences of real people;
- identify and distinguish perspectives on identity and solidarity drawn from sociological theory;
- apply those theoretical perspectives in the analysis of specific individuals and groups.
Assessment by case study presentation in tutorial (20%); essay (30%); final examination (50%).
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