Who are we? What defines our identity? In this course, Janne Teller rejects the current fashionable definition of identity based on external markers, such as nationality, religion, job, and sexuality. Instead, she argues that we should define our identity more dynamically, based predominantly on our inner characteristics, enabling us to better understand and interact with people of other 'identities'.

By the end of the course, you will have learnt:

• The origins and history of identity.
• The problems with our current markers of identity.
• The importance of art in uniting people with different identities.
• What our 'essence' is, and why it is important.
• A utopian vision for how we should define ourselves, and how this will affect society as a whole.

As part of the course, there are in-video quiz questions to consolidate your learning, and discussion boards to have your say.

IAI Academy courses are designed to be challenging but accessible to the interested student. No specialist knowledge is required.

Janne Teller

Janne Teller is an acclaimed Danish novelist and essayist. In her existential novel, Nothing, a group of teenagers set out to prove that life has meaning. Initially banned, it became a prize-winning international bestseller, selling more than 1.7 million copies. Her subsequent work touches on themes of religious and political fanaticism, European identity, and the nature of art.

In 2013, Teller organised the Writers Against Mass Surveillance campaign, which was signed by over 500 international authors.

• Teller, J., Identity: A Philosophical Inquiry, (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2020).
• Taylor, C., Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
• Bauman, Z., Liquid Modernity, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).
• Ricoeur, P., Oneself as Another, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
• Erikson, E. H., Identity: Youth and Crisis, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968).
• Giddens, A., Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
• Honneth, A., The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995).