Fabricating Authenticity

Fabricating Authenticity expands on revised Culture on the Edge blog posts where group members focus on claims of authenticity and how they are employed. Authenticity is examined as a socially contested and constructed label used to manage and codify a variety of choices in relation to understandings of identity formation.

The main chapters in this volume draw on a variety of sites, topics, and case studies to explore what is at stake in claims of authenticity. Building on these chapters, Fabricating Authenticity engages fourteen early career scholars to respond, critique, and press further the approaches and arguments put forth by members of Culture on the Edge. Following the format of the earlier volumes in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, the introduction and afterword provide a substantive, theoretical analysis on the discourse of authenticity.

Fabricating Authenticity explores everyday examples that work as productive conversation-starters for those wanting to complicate and examine authenticity claims, making this an ideal volume for the introductory classroom and beyond.