ABSTRACT
Few campus controversies are so dynamic and ill-understood as those over "identity politics." That's not only because issues surrounding race and gender are as volatile on campus as they are in national politics; it's also because "identity politics" names a complex intersection of political and intellectual conflicts, where debates over affirmative action, date rape, gay and lesbian studies, and poststructuralist social theory meet. Crucially, identity politics are more tangled on campus than elsewhere in the culture, precisely because of their coexistence alongside theoretical developments in poststructuralist thought. The campus has seen both the energetic deployment of identity politics and its most substantive critiques. "Identity politics," therefore, designates an important nexus of political struggles among myriad campus groups and constituencies, but its implications are by no means confined to the classroom, the quad, or the cultural center.
