Outside Belongings

Outside Belongingscontributes in an entirely new way to the debates about identity that dominate much of today's critical discourse. Probyn argues against a model of identity--that is, one in which individuals possess an intrinsic quality that guarantees authentic belonging. In its place, she proposes a model of identity that takes into account the desires of individuals, and groups of individuals, to belong. The concepts Probyn considers--"the outside," "the surface," and "belonging"--allow her to articulate, in concrete terms, her precise concerns about sexuality and nationality. Drawing upon a wide range of examples--fiction, film, television, government policy--she fashions a work that prompts us to reconsider some of the key critical issues of our time: the self, the materiality of bodies and desire, the experience as the basis of theory. Interdisciplinary, informed by the work of Foucault, Deleuze, and Sedgwick, this is a bold articulation of a thinker at the frontiers ofcultural and queer studies.