Fabricating Origins

This book builds on a series of posts that originally appeared, in earlier forms, on the Culture on the Edge blog. In these posts each member of the group focused on the problem of origins, examining how we repeatedly conjure up an authorized past that suits the needs of the continually changing present. Fabricating Origins extends the original studies further by inviting ten scholars to apply extend, even critique the contributions, to further illustrate for readers how talk of origins in the present is so much more interesting that being preoccupied with long past origins themselves.

The volume, like all books in the Working with Culture on the Edge series, is introduced and concluded by original, theoretically challenging but engaging essays. Although not a textbook, Fabricating Origins is especially suited for upper-level and graduate seminar-style teaching. The volume therefore includes an annotated set of suggested readings on how to rethink origins as the product of contemporary and always tactically useful talk and action.