This collection of small books draws on revised versions of posts that originally appeared online at edge.ua.edu—the blog for Culture on the Edge, a research collaborative rethinking identity studies. Each chapter is supplemented by original responses from early career scholars outside the group, that press each main chapter in new directions, either by applying its approach to novel situations or by offering a critique that enhances the approach. Each volume therefore demonstrates how to work with a more dynamic, historically-sensitive approach to identification, exemplified at a host of ordinary social sites—from museums and popular music to ordering at fast food restaurants. Each volume is comprised of brief chapters that retain the informality of blogging, modeling for readers how scholars can better examine the contingent and therefore changeable practices that help to create the conditions in which we claim to be an enduring something.

Each volume opens with a brief general introduction to the key word on which it focuses and each chapter ends with an annotated list of suggested readings. Each volume then closes with a transcript of a conversation between members of Culture on the Edge in which they discuss the responses to each chapter and tackle wider issues of relevance to each volume’s main theme.

Ideal for a variety of classes in which identity or the past are discussed, these small books can either set the table for the more in-depth readings in a course or be paired with their suggested resources to comprise an entire course’s readings. Thoroughly collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and cross-generational in nature, Working with Culture on the Edge provides an opportunity to rethink identity with a group of scholars committed to pressing identity studies in new directions.

Contact Series Editor: Vaia Touna