19: Transformational Identities

Introduction: Transformation in Progress

Annalee Newitz, Jillian Sandell
What do we mean when we say 'transformational identities'? The term has no origin, as far as we know, within academic theories of identity or popular notions about the self.

Become Spoiled Moroccan Royalty for an Evening: The Allure of Ethnic Eateries

Rena Diamond
In restaurant reviews, as in colonialism, the non-dominant culture is exoticized, fetishized, and consumed.

Free to Be Jew and Me

Joel Schalit
All discourse about transformative identities goes to the heart of Bad Subjects' criticisms of multi-culturalism: the critique of deliberately self-marginalized forms of social identity. The starting point for identity politics, we argued, was the fetishization of oppressed forms of cultural identification.

Geek Chic

Ana Marie Cox
I encountered the 'loser' phenomenon first in a record store in Lincoln, Nebraska. Though in 1990 'grungy' was just another adjective in the fanzine thesaurus, SubPop was a vibrant young label and their tee-shirts proved it: above a subtle logo, the word 'LOSER' -- all caps, in matter-of-fact block type -- loomed quite large.

Is Utopia a Dyke Bar in Tucson?

Cynthia Hoffman
The question 'what is a community' or 'what is a community identity' is one that plagues me -- I would even suggest that it plagues us all.

Morphing Out of Identity Politics: Black or White and Terminator 2

Ron Alcalay
While ideas of metamorphosing bodies are as old and fertile as storytelling traditions, our capacity to morph matter visually, 'in real time,' captivates audiences because it appeals to our belief in the idea of transformational identity.

Reality Bites, So Buy a Big Gulp

Bill Salzman
Ben Stiller builds on a media-created identity, as well as the training of a 'hip' audience, in order to romanticize the consumerism of the poor leisure class.

Useful Fictions

Charlie Bertsch
The left needs to turn the idea of transformation on its head. We do not need narratives of individual transformation within a society that does not change. Instead, we need to construct fictions of identity that inspire individuals to work for social change; fictions of identity that are predicated not on the individual's opposition to society, but on her or his integration into it...

Voices from the Collective

Nathan Newman, Annalee Newitz
Having just finished reading a paper copy of Issue #18 on Cyberspace... what struck me was that when everyone was talking about cyberspace, they were talking about what it meant for the identity and actions of average folks...