Identity and the Difficulty of Emancipation

This book provides a comprehensive account of the phenomenon of identity in politics, featuring for the first time the question of individual emancipation. It addresses the burning questions of our times, viz. nationalism, populism, Islamic fundamentalism, multiculturalism, postsecularism and postcolonialism. The volume repudiates an easy reconciliation between identity and emancipation, such as it occurs in contemporary liberal and multicultural political theories. It shows that we cannot achieve emancipation without Kant’s help, whereas identity relentlessly draws us back to collective values and the community. The book urges for a new understanding of identity and a politics that instead of accommodating identities seeks to govern them.

• Liberal Nationalism
• Freedom and Identity
• Agency, Psychology and Liberalism
• Identity, Difference and Anti-Essentialism
• Psychology and the Self
• Multiculturalism, Islam and Suicide Bombers
• Foundations of Multiculturalism
• Islam and Democracy
• Communalism in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Identity and the Difficulty of Emancipation
• Liberalism in Search of Identity
• Identity and the Quest for Multiculturalism
• Identity Politics

• Department of Political Science, LUISS ‘Guido Carli’ University, Rome, Italy

  Volker Kaul

Volker Kaul teaches political philosophy at the Department of Political Science at LUISS 'Guido Carli' University in Rome and is research associate at the observatory Ethos Luiss Business School. He is also lecturer at the CEA Rome Center. Moreover, he coordinates the research area "East–West Dialogues" for the foundation Reset–Dialogues on Civilizations. Currently, he is conducting a research project on the representation of women in politics for the Italian National Research Council (CNR). His work focuses on the nexus between identity and politics. In 2016, he published together with Seyla Benhabib a book entitled Toward New Democratic Imaginaries – Istanbul Seminars on Islam, Culture and Politics for Springer. He just edited two further books: one with Ananya Vajpeyi on Populism and Minorities - Critical Perspectives from South Asia and Europe for Springer and another with Ingrid Salvatore on What is Pluralism? for Routledge. He is co-editing since 2010 a yearly special issue of the journal Philosophy & Social Criticism on issues related to culture, religion and politics.

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