What’s Critical About Critical Theory?
“You’ve got to try – you’ve got to stay critical or die”
M 1/13: Course introduction
W 1/15: Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” in Practical Philosophy (pp. 17-22)
F 1/17: Karl Marx, “For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing” and “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. (pp. 12–25)
Alienation + Commodification
“Hideously synchronized with cold and cruel arithmetic”
W 1/22: Karl Marx, “Estranged Labor” and “Private Property and Communism” in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, in Early Writings (pp. 322–334, 345–358)
F 1/25: Karl Marx, “The Commodity” 1+2 in Capital, vol. 1 (pp. 125-137)
M 1/27: Karl Marx, “The Fetishism of Commodities and its Secret” in Capital, vol. 1 (pp. 163–177)
The Frankfurt School
“We need New Noise. New art for real people”
W 1/29: Max Horkheimer, “The State of Contemporary Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research” in Critical Theory and Society (pp. 25–36)
F 1/31: Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory” in Critical Theory: Selected Essays (pp. 188–210)
M 2/3: (cont.) (pp. 211–243)
W 2/5: Max Horkheimer, “Postscript” in Critical Theory: Selected Essays (pp. 244–252)
The Dialectic of Enlightenment
“No future, no past”
F 2/7: Max Horkheimer + Theodor Adorno, Three Prefaces in Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. xi–xix)
M 2/10: Max Horkheimer + Theodor Adorno, “The Concept of Enlightenment” in Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. 1–22)
W 2/12: (cont.) (pp. 22–34)
F 2/14: Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History” in Illuminations (pp. 253–264)
Art + Society + the Culture Industry
“Catatonic leisure at 1000 MPH”
M 2/17: Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations (pp. 217–251)
W 2/19: Siegfried Kracauer, “The Mass Ornament” in Critical Theory and Society (pp. 145–154)
F 2/21: Max Horkheimer + Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” in Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. 94–136)
M 2/24: Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry Reconsidered” in Critical Theory and Society (pp. 128–135)
W 2/26: Theodor Adorno et. al., Introduction to The Authoritarian Personality in Critical Theory and Society (pp. 219–232)
F 2/28: NO CLASS
M 3/2: Herbert Marcuse, “Liberation from the Affluent Society” in Critical Theory and Society (pp. 276–287)
W 3/4: Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance” in A Critique of Pure Tolerance (pp. 81–99)
F 3/6: (cont.) (99–123)
Auschwitz + Wrong Life
“I write to remember”
M 3/16: Max Horkheimer + Theodor Adorno, “Elements of Anti-Semitism: The Limits of Enlightenment” in Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. 137–172)
W 3/18: Theodor Adorno, “Education After Auschwitz” in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords (pp. 191–204)
F 3/20: Hannah Arendt, “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship” in Responsibility and Judgment (pp. 17–48)
M 3/23: Rahel Jaeggi, “‘No Individual Can Resist’: Minima Moralia as Critique of Forms of Life” in
Constellations 12.1 (pp. 65–82)
W 3/25: Judith Butler, “Can One Lead a Good Life in a Bad Life?” in Radical Philosophy 176 (pp. 9–18)
System + Lifeworld
“But the plan won’t accomplish anything if it’s not implemented”
F 3/27: Jürgen Habermas, “Toward a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism” in Jürgen Habermas on Society and Politics (pp. 114–141)
M 3/30: Jürgen Habermas, “The Concept of the Lifeworld and the Hermeneutic Idealism of Interpretive Sociology” in Jürgen Habermas on Society and Politics (pp. 165–187)
W 4/1: Jürgen Habermas, “The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld” in Jürgen Habermas on Society and Politics (pp. 188–212)
F 4/3: (cont.) (pp. 212–228)
The Legitimation Crisis
“This station is non-operational”
M 4/6: Jürgen Habermas, “Knowledge and Human Interests: A General Perspective” in Knowledge and Human Interests (pp. 301–317)
W 4/8: Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere,” and “What Does a Crisis Mean Today? Legitimation Problems in Late Capitalism” in Jürgen Habermas on Society and Politics (pp. 231–236, 266–283)
F 4/10: Jürgen Habermas, “The Crisis of the Welfare State and the Exhaustion of Utopian Energies” in Jürgen Habermas on Society and Politics (pp. 284–299)
Capitalism and Ideology
“Increase the dosage, count back from ten”
M 4/13: Karen Ng, “Ideology Critique from Hegel and Marx to Critical Theory” in Constellations 22.3 (pp. 393–404)
W 4/15: Rahel Jaeggi, “Rethinking Ideology” in New Waves in Political Philosophy (pp. 63–86)
F 4/17: Nancy Fraser + Rahel Jaeggi, “Historicizing Capitalism” in Capitalism: A Conversation (pp. 61–90)
M 4/20: (cont.) (pp. 90–114)
W 4/22: Nancy Fraser + Rahel Jaeggi, “Criticizing Capitalism” in Capitalism: A Conversation (pp. 115–140)
F 4/24: (cont.) (pp. 140–164)
M 4/27: Raymond Geuss, The Idea of a Critical Theory (pp. 75–95)