After Identity: A Reader in Law and Culture

Identity politics has brought many otherwise suppressed voices to the forefront of legal discourse--women, gay men, lesbians, and racial and ethnic minorities. But it has also treated these traditional identity categories as stable, erasing conflicts and differences within them.After Identityis a groundbreaking collection of essays by legal scholars addressing the social and legal dilemmas of identity politics in all its complexity. Authored by the leading voices in critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, critical race theory and queer legal theory, these essays explore the importance of sexual, national and other identities in people's lived experiences while simultaneously challenging the limits of legal strategies focused on traditional identity groups. These new ways of thinking about cultural identity have implications for strategies for legal reform, as well as for progressive thinking generally about theory, culture and politics. AfterIdentityexplores some of the most important issues of our times: sexuality, affirmative action, community, post-colonialism and violence. These essays explore these themes through a variety of methodologies and critical perspectives, ranging from first-person narrative and New Historicism to doctrinal analysis. Contributors:Mary Joe Frug, Janet E. Halley, Dan Danielsen, Gary Peller, Duncan Kennedy, Patricia J. Williams, Gerald Torres, Kathryn Milun, Regina Austin, Gerald Frug, David Kennedy, Karen Engle, Nathaniel Berman, Rosemary Coombe, Kendall Thomas, Ileana Porras, Elizabeth V. Spelman, Martha Minow, Kimberle Crenshaw.