The Identitarian Reflex: Critical Theory and the “Metapolitics” of the New Right

In his Academy project, “The Identitarian Reflex: Critical Theory and the ‘Metapolitics’ of the New Right,” Moltke aims to shed light on how the New Right mobilizes arts and ideas in today’s culture wars. He looks at the New Right’s media strategies, its identity politics, and its efforts to shift the very language of public discourse to the right. “To understand the global resurgence of right-wing politics, we must analyze its cultural logics,” he writes. His object is what the New Right calls its “metapolitics.” Situated at one remove from the political institutions and sociological structures analyzed by the social sciences, Moltke argues, “metapolitics” call for humanities-based approaches to supplement the insights gleaned in political science and sociology. Inspired by questions and methods from cultural studies and critical theory, Moltke will analyze cultural formations of the New Right on both sides of the Atlantic in an effort to understand the antidemocratic appeals made in the name of ethnonationalist, “identitarian” visions of the future. In this sense, his project joins appeals to humanities scholars to address the meaning, fragility, and contingency of democracy as a cultural formation and a way of life. While in Berlin, von Moltke plans to expand his collaboration with local scholars, to work with right-wing monitoring groups such as the Antonio Amadeu Foundation, and to deepen his ties to the Krzyzowa/Kreisau Foundation for European Understanding.