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Critical Theory
A Very Short Introduction
Stephen Eric Bronner
144 pages
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9 black and white halftones
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174x111mm
978-0-19-973007-0
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Paperback
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05 May 2011
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- Offers a new and striking reinterpretation of critical theory
- Explores the contributions of a gamut of well-known representatives of the critical tradition, including Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and Jurgen Habermas
- Presents a fresh, controversial interpretation of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's seminal Dialectic of Enlightenment
In its essence, Critical Theory is Western Marxist thought with the emphasis moved from the liberation of the working class to broader issues of individual agency. Critical Theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose—and, if at all possible, cure—the ills of society, particularly fascism and capitalism. In this book, Stephen Eric Bronner provides sketches of famous and less famous representatives of the critical tradition (such as George Lukács and Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse
and Jurgen Habermas) as well as many of its seminal texts and empirical investigations.
Though they shared a Marxist bent, the Frankfurt School's scholars came from a variety of fields—philosophy, economics, psychoanalysis, and even music—and they initially sought not only to do interdisciplinary work but also to combine theory with practice, criticism with empirical data. Forced by the rise of Hitler to flee to the United States, by the late 1930s the Frankfurt School left behind the emphasis on empiricism, beginning instead to specialize in philosophical inquiry into the nature of social control, which combined the work of Hegel, Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche.
This VSI is ultimately organized around the cluster of concepts and themes that set
critical theory apart from its more traditional philosophical competitors. Bronner explains and discusses concepts such as method and agency, alienation and reification, the culture industry and repressive tolerance, non-identity and utopia. He argues for the introduction of new categories and perspectives for illuminating the obstacles to progressive change and focusing upon hidden transformative possibilities. Only a critique of critical theory can render it salient for a new age. That is precisely what this very short introduction seeks to provide.Readership: General readers and students of philosophy, cultural studies, literature and literary theory, political science, and sociology
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Stephen Eric Bronner, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director for Global Relations, Centre for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director for Global Relations, Centre for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University; author, Reclaiming the Enlightenment: Toward a Politics of Radical Engagement (Columbia, 2004); Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists (Routledge 1994, pb 2002); co-editor, Critical Theory and Society: A Reader (Routledge, 1989).
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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