Quaestio mihi factus sum: Death, Friendship, and the Construction of Identity in the Confessions

This article argues that Augustine’s identity in the Confessions is not fixed or purely inward, but is continually reshaped through relationships marked by friendship, love, and death. By examining the deaths of close companions—alongside enduring friendships with figures such as Alypius, Nebridius, and Monica—it shows how grief destabilizes Augustine’s sense of self and ultimately redirects his love toward God as its proper end. The study contends that friendship functions as a crucial mediator between self-knowledge and divine knowledge, revealing identity as relational, mutable, and ordered through rightly directed love.

Issue XXIContent EditorsDecember 17, 2025augustine, religion, poetry, friendship, death, identity

The State’s Construction of Subjectivity: A Literary Analysis of the Contemporary Narco-Novel Perra Brava

By Carla Graciano, Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Perra Brava, written by Orfa Alarcón, is a Mexican narco-novel that will act as the focal point of this essay. Perra most often translates to bitch or female dog, and most of the time, women are the ones who are on the receiving end of this epithet.

Issue XContent EditorsMay 4, 2020novel, Mexico, literature, politics, women, drugs, government, identityComment

The Crises of Human Identity in the 1960s

By David deHaas

The 1960s were a time of many social and political movements representing the diverse voices and concerns amongst the fragmented American populous. The particular causes of these movements consisted of clashes between standard cultural norms that characterized American society, and communities that resisted this standard. I would posit that a substantial causal factor of these clashes was a widespread crises of human identity.

Archives, Issue VIIContent EditorsApril 6, 2017women, politics, government, identity, crisis, movement, culture, sexism, counter-cultureComment

A Distinction Between Sense of Personal Identity and the Produced Self

By Cameron Bunker

The self can be defined as an individual’s experience that one is a separate entity from other beings. This paper will discuss this notion of self, how it is produced linguistically, and its relation to the sense of personal identity.

Volume 5, ArchivesContent EditorsOctober 29, 2015psychology, theory, method, identity, personalityComment

The Paradox of Globalization

By Christopher Albert Jacques D'Silva

The advent of globalization has brought about sweeping changes that have left indelible marks on societies. While newfound interconnectedness between cultures, information, and people creates an increasingly homogenized planet in some respects, such trends also have the effect of isolating certain non-members of the so-called “global community.” This residual marginalization has typically affected those who obstinately cling to the past, and those who are simply dubious towards the current state of affairs. For these persons, methods of coping with this social and psychological schism run the gamut from complete denial and delusion, to important modulations of acceptance.

Volume 5, ArchivesContent EditorsMay 30, 2015culture, novel, identity, globalizationComment

Laughing at Men

By Sara Maki

The situation comedy, or the “sitcom,” is an established part of daily television. Prime time is rife with them; some are considered classics (All in the Family, The Cosby Show,Cheers), and others are quoted long after they are off the air (Friends, Seinfeld, Will and Grace).

Volume 4, ArchivesContent EditorsSeptember 5, 2014television, sitcoms, stereotypes, men, comedy, relationships, characters, theory, identityComment

Back to the Futurism

By Rosalind Fursland

Mina Loy is primarily known as an early modernist poet, although she was also an admired creator in other spheres. One of Loy’s most recognisable and insightful remarks in her essay “Modern Poetry” is that “Poetry is prose bewitched, a music made of visual thoughts, the sound of an idea” (Loy 157)

Volume 4, ArchivesContent EditorsSeptember 5, 2014modern, movement, language, influence, poetry, expression, identityComment

Making Gender Reels

By Laura Stamm

As a fantasy structure, film acts as a privileged medium to conceive of formations, including identity formations, which are otherwise unthinkable under dominant ideology.

Archives, Volume 3Content EditorsAugust 25, 2014film, gender, LGBTQ+, performance, identityComment