The profusion of works devoted to identity since the late 1990s raises a fundamental question about how —and to what ends —sociologists employ this concept—how issues of identity are situated both within their scholarly inquiries and within the lived realities they themselves inhabit. This book presents four ideal-typical modes of identifying and framing sociological reflections on identity, which the author terms “paradigmatic moments.” Together, they constitute a form of sociological knowledge architecture in this field. This framework enables a clearer understanding of the intellectual filiations, theoretical and epistemological assumptions, and explanatory scope that inform the work of numerous scholars across sociology and its cognate disciplines, including anthropology, philosophy, political science, linguistics, and literary studies.