The Metapolitics of Identity: Identitarianism and its Critics

This paper situates Mithu Sanyal's recent novel Identitti in the context of ongoing public debates in Germany about identity politics, including the inroads made into these debates by the New Right under the banner of "identitarianism." It argues that the disparagement of "left identitarians" by liberal critics is a sign of the New Right's success in shifting the discourse on identity away from emancipatory aspirations for recognition and social justice, and toward a völkisch nationalism.