Description
This is a remarkably sophisticated, learned, and elegant piece of work, and an important contribution to debates about political identity, the role and shape of 'recognition,' and citizenship. The arguments are ingenious and masterfully pursued. -- Dana Villa, author of "Socratic Citizenship" Bound by Recognition is an important and original contribution to the literature on struggles over recognition. Markell's thesis is that these struggles should not be oriented towards the definitive mutual recognition of the contending partners, for this ideal is unobtainable and dangerous in practice. Rather, they should be seen as human, all too human intersubjective activities of imperfect acknowledgement in conditions of finitude, plurality, and the contingency of identities. This Arendtian thesis is grounded in brilliant and provocative interpretations of Sophocles, Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, Taylor, and Kymlicka. -- James Tully, University of Toronto, author of "Strange Multiplicity"
About the Author
Patchen Markell is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.
Reviews
Winner of the Best First Book Award, Foundations of Political Theory Section of the American Political Science Association "[Markell's] arguments are closely reasoned, provocative, and supported by clever, frequent reference to the theoretical literature and to historical and contemporary cases. The language is clear but technical, and though relatively jargon-free, requires that the reader actually think rather than simply 'read.'"--Choice "Patchen Markell calls us to be wary of the politics of recognition... Bound by Recognition transcends its object of critique. Markell's account of the persistence of the aspiration to sovereignty and its rage against the unscripted and undetermined quality of human relations tells of the way our search for justice is sometimes an effort to relieve us of the burden of our freedom."--Shalini Satkunanandan, Law, Culture and the Humanities
Awards
Winner of American Political Science Association Foundations of Political Theory Section: First Book Award 2004.
Book Information
ISBN 9780691113821
Author Patchen Markell
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publisher Princeton University Press
Weight(grams) 454g