Almost a Critical Theorist . . .

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Ihde ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Shelf Life ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Critical Theorist

This article starts with an autobiographical reflection in which I first trace how close I came to doing my Ph.D. studies with Herbert Marcuse when he was at Brandeis University; then follows my early post-Ph.D. work which continued to use critical theorists in teaching, later following a growing disillusionment with the implicit elitism of many critical theory authors. Then I turn to deeper philosophical reasons for my divergence from critical theory by introducing the notion of “shelf-life,” and argue that much Marxist and neo-Marxist work is today outdated, or has reached limits of its shelf-life.

scholarly journals Where is critical theory? Eurocentrism and marginalization in European and American Critical Theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Arnold Farr
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
The Real ◽  
Theory Of Education ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Comfort ◽  
Critical Theorist

In this paper I will examine the marginalization of certain forms of critical theory in US.  I will argue that the real Great Refusals have been refused by much of what calls itself critical theory.  What gets accepted as critical theory in the academy is often connected to the social position of those doing the theory.  That is, quite often critical theory is constructed by those who enjoy a certain degree of social comfort and have created a gap between themselves and the “wretched of the earth” who suffer daily.  Critical Theory becomes Ivory Tower theorizing.  Finally, I will argue that Herbert Marcuse was a critical theorist who tried to stay connected to those who suffer.  I will make some proposals based on Herbert Marcuse’s critical theory of education, the black feminist framework of intersectionality, and what I call democratic attunement.

Horkheimer, Max (1895–1973)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Edgar
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pablo Picasso ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Theorist ◽  
The University

Born near Stuttgart, Germany, the philosopher Max Horkheimer, who obtained his doctorate from the University of Frankfurt, is best known as a leader of the Frankfurt School, along with Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas. From 1930 to 1958 (with a significant hiatus from 1934 to 1948), Horkheimer served as the Director of the Institut für Sozialforschung (Frankfurt Institute for Social Research), founded in 1923 to promote multidisciplinary research in the social sciences with a particular focus on Marxian thought; along with his colleague Adorno, Horkheimer was responsible for developing the distinctive form of Marxist philosophy that framed this research through the methodologies of German critical theory. Instead of just describing social systems through "objective" means, critical theory would endeavor to uncover the social context and raise questions about truth and social justice, acknowledging also that critical theory cannot produce universal truths. At best, the critical theorist simply expresses the contradictions and falsehoods of the society within which they work. Critical theory was applied in a sweeping analysis of Western civilization in Dialektik der Aufklärung (1947; Dialectic of Enlightenment), in which Adorno and Horkheimer argued that the progress of enlightened Western culture was simultaneously a regression into a new barbarism and an entanglement in myth. In modernist art, such as the work of James Joyce and Pablo Picasso, Horkheimer identified a crucial source of resistance to the political and economic oppression of late capitalist society. Horkheimer, who was Jewish, escaped Nazi Germany and taught at Columbia University from 1935 to 1941; he lived in Los Angeles during the 1940s, but eventually returned to Germany where died in Nuremburg in 1973.

1. The Frankfurt School

2017 ◽  
pp. 7-16
Author(s):  
Stephen Eric Bronner
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Erich Fromm ◽  
Max Horkheimer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Inner Circle

‘The Frankfurt School’ provides a brief history of the formation of the Frankfurt School, and biographies of prominent members. The Frankfurt School grew out of the Institute for Social Research, the first Marxist think tank. However, in 1930, under the directorship of Max Horkheimer, the organization moved to America to escape the Nazis, and began to concentrate on critical theory. Aside from Horkheimer, notable members of the Frankfurt School's inner circle included Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas. Each member of the inner circle was different, but they all shared the same concerns, and attempted to solve them through intellectual daring and experimentation.

Security after emancipation? Critical Theory, violence and resistance

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 1113-1135 ◽  
Author(s):  
COLUMBA PEOPLES
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Current Configuration ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Normative Foundations

AbstractWithin the current configuration of Critical Security Studies (CSS) the concept of ‘emancipation’ is upheld as the keystone of a commitment to transformative change in world politics, but comparatively little is said on the status of violence and resistance within that commitment. As a means of highlighting this relative silence, this article examines the nature of the connection between CSS and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. In particular it disinters the reflections of Herbert Marcuse on the connections between emancipatory change, violence and resistance as a means of interrogating and challenging the definition of ‘security as emancipation’. Doing so, it is argued, points towards some of the potential limitations of equating security and emancipation, and provides a provocation of contemporary CSS from within its own cited intellectual and normative foundations.

scholarly journals FEMINISME SEBAGAI KRITIK KAPITALISME: MEMPERKENALKAN TEORI KRITIS NANCY FRASER

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Amin Mudzakkir
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Gender Analysis ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
Socialist Feminism ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Critical Theorist ◽  
Nancy Fraser

<em>This article is an overview of the intellectual and historical background of Nancy Fraser's thought. Intellectually, Fraser is a socialist feminist and critical theorist of the Frankfurt school who sought to reconnect gender analysis and the critique of capitalism. According to Fraser, the shift from state-managed-capitalism to neoliberal capitalism is the historical context that separates gender analysis and capitalism criticism in such a way that feminism is trapped as a handmaiden of neoliberalism. Based on an examination of Fraser's works and related literature, this article shows the problems of feminism in the neoliberal era and Fraser's critical theory offers to reclaim it.</em><br /><br /><strong>Key words:</strong> socialist feminism, critical theory, the Frankfurt School, gender, capitalism.

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