Bound by Recognition

"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 ofSocratic Citizenship "Bound by Recognitionis 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 ofStrange MultiplicityMarkell, Patchen is the author of 'Bound by Recognition', published 2003 under ISBN 9780691113821 and ISBN 0691113823.