THE ORIGIN AND POLYSEMY OF THE TERM IDENTITY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62536/sjehss.2025.v3.i9.pp38-41Abstract
The article traces the genesis and semantic evolution of the term identity in the humanities and analyzes its polysemy in literary studies. It examines the main historical-philosophical and socio-scientific antecedents of the concept, the ways it was borrowed by literary scholarship, its key characteristics (multiplicity, dynamism, relativity, narrativity), and methodological implications for analyzing literary texts. Special attention is given to the contributions of Erik H. Erikson, Stuart Hall, Anthony Giddens, Paul Ricoeur, and Homi Bhabha in shaping modern approaches to identity and their applicability to literary analysis.
References
1.
Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
2.
Hall, S. (1990). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, culture, difference (pp. 222–237). London: Lawrence & Wishart.
3.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
4.
Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as another (K. Blamey, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.
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Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
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Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
8.
Ricoeur, P. (1992). Narrative identity. In Oneself as another (pp. 140–168). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (See also discussions in Philosophy Today and PhilPapers).
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