New Books in Political Science Wendy Brown, "States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Mar 12, 2026
Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor and political theorist known for work on neoliberalism and identity, discusses how woundedness became a basis for modern political identity. She traces historical forces shaping injury-based politics. Topics include wounded attachments, limits of legal identity fixing, post-structuralism’s role, and how the left might reclaim collective freedom and a more expansive, loving politics.
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Wounded Attachments Choke Emancipation
- Wendy Brown critiques the 1980s–90s left for centering identity as fixed and legally inscribed, which she argues choked emancipatory politics.
- She labels this formation 'wounded attachments' and links it to attempts to legalize identity remedies and fix identities in law.
Neoliberalism Made Identity Into Capital
- Brown connects the rise of injury-based identity politics to neoliberal shifts that made the self into human capital and eroded left coordinates after Cold War defeats.
- She argues neoliberalism encouraged identity as portable capital (precursor to DEI) while unions and regulation were dismantled.
Post-Structuralism Enables Political Rebuilding
- Brown defends post-structuralist theory as politically useful: losing fixed foundations opens space to construct persuasive political narratives.
- She says politics is discursive and theory helps explain why some narratives gain traction and how to shift them.
