How do ordinary people identify themselves as part of a group? By what means do they express a largely unspoken understanding of themselves in society? This special issue on new social imaginaries examines the emergent forms of solidarity and collective identity in a global context. The essays explore how local cultural forms and global social movements contribute to the making and unmaking of imagined collective identities.
Contributors to this collection include major voices in the fields of philosophy, critical literature, sociology, anthropology, and communication studies. The articles consider how people conceive of and categorize themselves as part of a cohesive group under the multiple rubrics of the public and counterpublic, nation, ethnos, civilization, genealogy, democracy, and the market. Many of the essays are situated in specific national and cultural sites such as Africa, Australia, eighteenth-century England, the European Union, India, and Turkey. Others examine the intersections of global financial markets and democratic institutions.
As a whole, New Imaginaries suggests a new way of synthesizing economic, political, and cultural approaches to social life.

Contributors. Arjun Appadurai, Craig Calhoun, Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, Nilüfer Göle, Benjamin Lee, Edward LiPuma, Achille Mbembe, Mary Poovey, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Charles Taylor, Michael Warner

Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar and Benjamin Lee are Codirectors of the Center for Transcultural Studies. Gaonkar is also Associate Professor of Speech Communication at Northwestern University. Lee is Professor of Anthropology at Rice University.

  

  

  

  

1. Introduction–Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar

2. Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics–Arjun Appadurai

3. Publics and Counterpublics–Michael Warner

4. Modern Social Imaginary–Charles Taylor

5. The Liberal Civil Subject and the Social in Eighteenth-Century British Moral Philosophy–Mary Poovey

6. Imagining Solidarity: Cosmopolitanism, Constitutional Patriotism, and the Public Sphere–Craig Calhoun

7. Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries–Nilüfer Göle

8. Cultures of Circulation: The Imaginations of Modernity–Benjamin Lee and Edward LiPuma

9. Notes on Gridlock: Genealogy, Intimacy, Sexuality–Elizabeth A. Povinelli

10. African Modes of Self-Writing–Achille Mbembe

11. From the Field–Shujen Wang

12. Snapshot: Islam in Public Space–Ludwig Ammann