ENGL 64.09 The Frankfurt School: An Introduction to Critical Theory

From its origins in the Weimar Republic through to the present day, the thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory have been central to our understanding the relationship between authoritarian political structures, industrial capitalism, aesthetic experience, and the mass media. This course situates the work of these thinkers in the arc between the rise of fascism in the 1920s and the revival of fascist structures of thought and feeling in the 2020s. We will focus on work by Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, Ernst Bloch and Herbert Marcuse, with the goal of approaching the forms of cultural critique that can help us conceptualize and navigate the often catastrophic experience of modernity.

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:TMV; WCult:W

The Timetable of Class Meetings contains the most up-to-date information about a course. It includes not only the meeting time and instructor, but also its official distributive and/or world culture designation. This information supersedes any information you may see elsewhere, to include what may appear in this ORC/Catalog or on a department/program website. Note that course attributes may change term to term therefore those in effect are those (only) during the term in which you enroll in the course.

Department-Specific Course Categories

English and Creative Writing