Reappraisals: Shifting Alignments in Postwar Critical Theory

Peter Uwe Hohendahl

Published by Cornell University Press 2016

Reappraisals

Shifting Alignments in Postwar Critical Theory

Peter Uwe Hohendahl
Funded by: National Endowment for the Humanities Open Book Program

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501705458

Overview
Contents

About this book

Reappraisals is a provocative account of the development of modern critical theory in Germany and the United States. Focusing on the period since World War II, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores key debates on the function of critical theory.

Author / Editor information

Peter Uwe Hohendahl is Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. He is an editor of the series Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought, which is copublished by Cornell University Press and the Cornell University Library. He is the author most recently of The Fleeting Promise of Art: Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory Revisited, also from Cornell.

Reviews

At the center of Reappraisals is the political question of where to locate critical agency in (post)modern societies. Hohendahl thus identifies the crucial question that links the work of the Frankfurt School to contemporary debates about postmodernity. His collection of essays spans the entire history of critical theory, displaying its interactions with rival paradigms of cultural politics—from the influence of Lukacs (as inventor of Western Marxism) to postmodernism and New Historicism.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Open Access Download PDF	vii
Introduction: Marx, the Frankfurt School, and West German History Open Access Download PDF	1
1. Neoromantic Anticapitalism: Georg Lukács’s Search for Authentic Culture Open Access Download PDF	21
2. Art Work and Modernity: The Legacy of Georg Lukács Open Access Download PDF	53
3. Autonomy of Art: Looking Back at Adorno's Aesthetische Theorie Open Access Download PDF	75
4. Dialectic of Enlightenment Revisited: Habermas's Critique of the Frankfurt School Open Access Download PDF	99
5. Habermas’s Philosophical Discourse of Modernity Open Access Download PDF	131
6. The Politicization of Aesthetic Theory: The Debate in Aesthetics since 1965 Open Access Download PDF	156
7. Reappraisals of Critical Theory: The Legacy of the Frankfurt School in America Open Access Download PDF	198
Index Open Access Download PDF	229

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Keywords: modern critical theory; Germany; United States; World War II; Frankfurt School; neomarxist criticism; Georg Lukacs; Theodor W. Adorno; Jürgen Habermas; postmodernism; New Historicism; contemporary debates about postmodernity

eBook

Published: November 1, 2016
ISBN: 9781501705458