Kursinformation

Dates

 

 

01.10.: 14-16 (ct)

07.10.: 14-16 (ct)

08.10.: 14-18 (ct) [Meeting with examination]

 

A century ago, critical theory emerged around the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research with the aim of achieving a rational society. Such a society would be characterized by a self-aware humanity that does not accept the existing bourgeois order and capitalist economic system as unchangeable, but rather as capable of being transformed by human action.

Critical theory is interested in how reason exists in modern societies yet is realized in a false, instrumental way. Critical theorists acknowledge that they are embedded in and shaped by existing society, and reflect on their own historical standpoint. They understand the formation of theory as part of a transformative practice, rather than merely an analysis of the status quo. Critical theory therefore rejects the separation of the individual from society, of theory from practice, and of truth from history.

In this course, we will explore the fundamental theses and arguments of critical theory as developed by the Frankfurt School by discussing a selection from groundbreaking texts. We will begin by examining two theorems which are fundamental for critical theory: Engels and Marx’s description of capitalist society and Freud’s psychoanalytic interpretation of the relation between individual and society. We will then examine cultural criticism in Adorno, the critique of instrumental reason in Horkheimer, the dialectic of liberation and repression in Marcuse, Habermas’s perspective on the relationship between knowledge and society, and Angela Davis’s analysis of the intersection of race, class, and gender.