Reappraisals

Shifting Alignments in Postwar Critical Theory

Peter Uwe Hohendahl author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cornell University Press

Published:10th Sep '91

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Reappraisals cover

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, illuminating the diverse positions and alliances among the participants. Bringing together six essays, as well as new introductory and concluding chapters, Hohendahl interprets and subjects to critical scrutiny many of the central ideas of the Frankfurt School. He first maps the trajectory of neomarxist criticism in Germany to the 1980s. Individual chapters then focus on the work of Georg Lukács, Theodor W. Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas, and on such issues as the politicization of German criticism after 1965 under the influence of the Frankfurt School.

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.

* German Quarter

ISBN: 9780801424557

Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 25mm

Weight: 907g

256 pages