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Introduction

Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, Otto Kircheimer, and Raymond Geuss

Raffaele Laudani (ed.)

in Secret Reports on Nazi Germany: The Frankfurt School Contribution to the War Effort

This introduction discusses the Frankfurt School's contribution to the United States' World War II effort. In particular, it examines the role played by three German scholars and prominent members of ... More

This introduction discusses the Frankfurt School's contribution to the United States' World War II effort. In particular, it examines the role played by three German scholars and prominent members of the Frankfurt School: Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer. As political analysts at the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the first American intelligence agency, Neumann, Marcuse, and Kirchheimer prepared intelligence reports on Nazi Germany. The chapter considers how, by adapting Critical Theory to the American cultural and bureaucratic machine, the Frankfurt group was rapidly able to impose their own “intellectual guidance” on the Central European Section, a Research and Analysis Branch subdivision charged with analyzing and studying Nazi Germany (as well as Austria and the other Central European countries).Less

Archives of Critical Theory

Andrew N. Rubin

in Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture, and the Cold War

This chapter turns to Institute for Social Research (or Frankfurt School) member Theodor Adorno as the partial representation of the experience of exile in terms of the ideology of positivism, which ... More

This chapter turns to Institute for Social Research (or Frankfurt School) member Theodor Adorno as the partial representation of the experience of exile in terms of the ideology of positivism, which had damaged the very category of experience in general. Positivism and empiricism had reduced reality to a prosaic and administered calculus, the effect of which was embodied in the position of the exile when confronted with modernity. Moreover, as Adorno writes, “It is unmistakably clear to the intellectual from abroad that he will have to eradicate himself as an autonomous being if he hopes to achieve anything.” In postwar Germany, his critique of positivism would face new, mostly institutional challenges.Less

Modernism and the Frankfurt School

Tyrus Miller

in Modernism and the Frankfurt School

In this chapter, the history of the Frankfurt School project is briefly surveyed, with especial attention to how the major thematics of their interdisciplinary social research correspond with ... More

In this chapter, the history of the Frankfurt School project is briefly surveyed, with especial attention to how the major thematics of their interdisciplinary social research correspond with important the currents of modernist art, culture, and thought in the first decades of the twentieth century. Following this survey, I discuss key concepts by figures closely related to or influential on the work of the Frankfurt School, though not strictly speaking “members”: the concept of reification in Georg Lukács, the analysis of technology in Siegfried Kracauer, and the notion of utopia / non-synchronicity in Ernst Bloch. I conclude with discussion of how the Frankfurt School, especially Benjamin and Adorno, influenced later debates about high and low culture in the context of 1980s and 1990s post-modernism.Less

Introduction: Historicism and the Cultural Present in Shakespeare Studies: Subjectivity in Early and Late Modernity

Hugh Grady

in Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Montaigne: Power and Subjectivity from Richard II to Hamlet

This introductory chapter begins with an analysis of how historicist approaches to Shakespeare have come to dominate the field, obscuring the ‘presentist’ qualities of contemporary historicism. But a ... More

This introductory chapter begins with an analysis of how historicist approaches to Shakespeare have come to dominate the field, obscuring the ‘presentist’ qualities of contemporary historicism. But a confrontation with the thinking and feeling of the ‘now’ is inevitable and desirable in our approaches to the cultural past, with the works of Shakespeare a crucial case in point. The following analysis of Machiavellian and Montaignean influences on the Henriad and Hamlet is itself informed by the rise in the 90s of a number of modifications to the theories of the subject of the 80s. These theories arose from texts of Foucault and Althusser, and, in addition to their insights, they led at times to reductive readings, blind to the actions of agency. A corrective is provided by the Frankfurt School approach to power and subjectivity. Both the past and the cultural present are relevant to this study, which uses Machiavelli and Montaigne as historical sources with relevance to our own day and its cultural theory.Less

America as Wasteland in Detour: Film Noir and the Frankfurt School

Paul A. Cantor

in The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV

Chapter Eight analyzes Edgar Ulmer's classic film noir Detour and its bleak portrait of America as a land of frustrated desires and lost dreams. It explores the affinities between Detour and the ... More

Chapter Eight analyzes Edgar Ulmer's classic film noir Detour and its bleak portrait of America as a land of frustrated desires and lost dreams. It explores the affinities between Detour and the Frankfurt School critique of Hollywood as a dream factory. Detour deconstructs the American myth of the West, especially Hollywood, as a land of opportunity. The chapter argues that film noir is not a purely home grown American product, as many have claimed. Like Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Ulmer was a European émigré who looked at America from an alien perspective, and found himself alienated even from its landscape. This alienation surfaces in his characters, who drift hopelessly through a world empty of love, family, and companionship. Aspects of America that represent freedom to its citizens—like open roads—look like sources of disorder and chaos to Ulmer's European sensibility.Less

Comedy in the Dark: Arendt, Chaplin, and Anti-Semitism

Cecilia Sjöholm

in Doing Aesthetics with Arendt: How to See Things

Opposite the stern political theorizing of the previous four chapters, Sjöholm concludes her text with an analysis of comedy. Charlie Chaplin represents, for Arendt, the serious mode of comedy that ... More

Opposite the stern political theorizing of the previous four chapters, Sjöholm concludes her text with an analysis of comedy. Charlie Chaplin represents, for Arendt, the serious mode of comedy that presents a necessary ideology critique; Chaplin is the split that modernity demands from subjects, the dictator yet also the proletariat, the bureaucratic insistence that Chaplin, like Eichmann, could be the next totalitarian leader. Anti-Semitism solidifies the foundations of totalitarianism and uses the Arendtian concept of ‘realness’ to pervade the minds of the public. Thus, propaganda and media were of primary importance to totalitarian regimes – deconstructing reality in order to posit the imaginary power of the fascist leader. Anti-Semitism is the product of the enlightenment (following the Frankfurt School) in which the Jew was the exclusion needed to be exiled. Art is paramount in Arendt’s philosophy because of the political dependence on aesthetics as action. Art emulates the freedom and spontaneity necessary to resist totalitarian moments and authority. Concluding, Sjöholm argues that art solidifies all major political tenants in Arendt: including an ontology of plurality, the public sphere and solidarity.Less

The Exile Experience

Pamela M. Potter

in Art of Suppression: Confronting the Nazi Past in Histories of the Visual and Performing Arts

This chapter looks at challenges faced by refugees from Nazism and their direct and indirect role in establishing perceptions about Nazi culture that still have deep roots in arts scholarship. Exile ... More

This chapter looks at challenges faced by refugees from Nazism and their direct and indirect role in establishing perceptions about Nazi culture that still have deep roots in arts scholarship. Exile studies, generally romanticizing their subjects’ experiences, developed a particular concept of Weimar modernism—that exiles exported and preserved the “good” German culture under assault by the Nazis—and in the process, these studies established the year 1933 as a caesura in German cultural history. But artists and performers encountered numerous challenges along the way, facing economic stresses in each of the countries they entered, and while intellectuals had a better experience (accounting for the outspokenness of Thomas Mann and the productivity of the Frankfurt School), all were held in suspicion for being Jews, Communists, and Germans. Cultural histories still reflect the influence of Adorno and Kracauer, but by reinterpreting exiles’ judgments in light of the insecurities they faced as refugees, we can see how those who were most vocal in proclaiming and redressing Nazi oppression did so in part to demonstrate their loyalties to host countries. Many had to distance themselves from all that was cultivated in Nazi Germany, even when they shared strong ties with that same cultural heritage.Less

Europe's Impact on the United States, 1928–1964

Bruce Kuklick

in A History of Philosophy in America: 1720-2000

In the inter‐war period and after, three movements of European thought were influential in the US because of the Nazi‐triggered exodus of intellectuals. The most important was that of European ... More

In the inter‐war period and after, three movements of European thought were influential in the US because of the Nazi‐triggered exodus of intellectuals. The most important was that of European positivists, led by Rudolph Carnap. The Marxists of the Frankfurt School had less of an impact in America, except for Herbert Marcuse, who remained in the country. Varieties of existentialism finally reached the US after World War II, although individual thinkers did not permanently migrate. The conflict between positivism and existentialism was to have serious consequences for professional philosophy.Less

Ethics without Normativity and Politics without Historicity: On Judith Butler’s Parting Ways. Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism¹

Seyla Benhabib

in Exile, Statelessness, and Migration

This chapter talks about how the announcement that Judith Butler was awarded the Adorno Prize of the city of Frankfurt led to an intense controversy that engulfed officials of the German-Jewish and ... More

This chapter talks about how the announcement that Judith Butler was awarded the Adorno Prize of the city of Frankfurt led to an intense controversy that engulfed officials of the German-Jewish and Israeli communities, members of academia, journalists, and public intellectuals. At issue was whether, given her support of the Israel Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), Butler should have been honored in the name of a Jewish-German refugee and one of the revered founders of the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. Nonetheless, Butler's achievement is to retrieve ethical imperatives toward a vision of cohabitation by reviving Jewish memories of exile and persecution, in that she reexamines long-forgotten distinctions between cultural and political Zionism.Less

Revisiting the Sources of Critical International Theory

Richard Devetak

in Critical International Theory: An Intellectual History

This chapter revisits the intellectual resources marshalled by critical international theory. It starts with the Frankfurt School and Max Horkheimer’s distinction between two conceptions of ... More

This chapter revisits the intellectual resources marshalled by critical international theory. It starts with the Frankfurt School and Max Horkheimer’s distinction between two conceptions of theory—critical and traditional. The chapter then turns to extended discussions of German idealism and historical materialism—in particular, Kant, Hegel, and Marx—to outline the normative and dialectical forms of social philosophy inherited by the Frankfurt School. Arising out of Kant’s transcendental philosophy was a form of critique concerned with the epistemic conditions under which the reasoning subject attains a pure intelligence detached from experience. This provided the context in which Hegel and Marx introduced their dialectical social theories. The chapter’s final section revisits the Kantian Enlightenment, which has exerted such an important influence over critical international theory. Running through the chapter is the transformative role critical philosophy plays in restoring freedom and reason to the world.Less

Thinking through feeling: critical theory and the affective turn

Simon Mussell

in Critical Theory and Feeling: The Affective Politics of the Early Frankfurt School

Chapter 1 sets out the theoretical terrain on which the wider project is based. It begins by revisiting some of the founding tenets of critical theory in the context of the establishment of the ... More

Chapter 1 sets out the theoretical terrain on which the wider project is based. It begins by revisiting some of the founding tenets of critical theory in the context of the establishment of the Institute for Social Research in the early twentieth century. The chapter then discusses contemporary theories of affect that have emerged in the past couple of decades as part of the so-called ‘new materialisms’. Taking on board some of the key findings of this recent work on affect, the author also highlights the potential political deficiencies that accompany such accounts, particularly within a growing ‘post-critical’ context. The chapter closes with suggestions as to how early critical theory – read through an affective lens – might provide the social and political grounding that affect theory often lacks, while at the same time noting how theories of affect are invaluable in shedding light on the efficacy of the pre- or extra-rational, so often sacrificed on the altar of political philosophy.Less

Critique and Law: The Legacy of the Frankfurt School

Roger Cotterrell

in Law's Community: Legal Theory in Sociological Perspective

What conceptual and methological issues arise in the attempt to develop a sociologically based moral critique of law? In this context, some important ideas of the German scholar Max Horkheimer on the ... More

What conceptual and methological issues arise in the attempt to develop a sociologically based moral critique of law? In this context, some important ideas of the German scholar Max Horkheimer on the nature of critical theory can be related to theoretical issues presented by the development of the critical legal studies (CLS) movement in the United States. The conclusion to be drawn is that critical theory and empirical social theory are certainly compatible but critical theory introduces the demand for a ‘moral vision’ to complete and reformulate the projects of empirical social theory. In this respect, critical theory creates certain moral challenges for legal theory which must inform its interaction with the kinds of social theory already considered in previous chapters. The context of American legal education is very different from the context of legal education in Britain. The most fundamental questions about the epistemology, methods, politics, and prospects of CLS are essentially rooted in ones that the central theoreticians of the Frankfurt School faced and discussed at length.Less

Introduction: Politics of Culture and the Spirit of Critique

Gabriel Rockhill and Alfredo Gomez-Muller (eds)

in Politics of Culture and the Spirit of Critique: Dialogues

This book is comprised of a series of discourses providing critical perspectives on cultural issues involving the politics of culture. The rising importance of culture in politics and morality is ... More

This book is comprised of a series of discourses providing critical perspectives on cultural issues involving the politics of culture. The rising importance of culture in politics and morality is evident in the fact that several authors have accepted the concept of culture as a useful approach for discussing contemporary politics and society. Generally, there have been two dominant positions: the “clash of civilizations” and “mainstream multiculturalism,” both of which are subject to critiques concerning the expanded notion of culture. The book aims to evaluate the contribution of critical theory to current debates on the idea of culture and other related progressive works, as well as engage political theorists through critical questions inspired by the Frankfurt School.Less

“Indigestible Residues”: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Aesthetic Negativism, and the Incompleteness of Logical Positivism

Michael LeMahieu

in Fictions of Fact and Value: The Erasure of Logical Positivism in American Literature, 1945-1975

In the literary response to logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein figures both as inspiration and opposition, as the philosopher of what is the case and as the poet of what is not. Wittgenstein’s ... More

In the literary response to logical positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein figures both as inspiration and opposition, as the philosopher of what is the case and as the poet of what is not. Wittgenstein’s contradictory reputation reflects the complexities of his philosophy, particularly the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The text exemplifies the logical positivist philosophy to which postwar American writers responded and at the same time prefigures that very response. In casting Wittgenstein as a positivist, each for their own ends, Rudolf Carnap’s Vienna Circle and Theodor Adorno’s Frankfurt School are surprisingly aligned. Yet with its unsettled combination of logical propositions and mystical aphorisms, the Tractatus refuses to correspond to either group’s description of it. Ironically, it is Adorno’s own concept of negative dialectics that makes legible Wittgenstein’s negative aesthetics, the attempt to show the “nonsense” that cannot be said, and that reveals the ways in which Wittgenstein rejects the very positivism his text makes possible.Less