Immanent Critiques

A century after its founding, the Institute for Social Research, now better known as the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, continues to generate provocative ideas and critical perspectives on the world that we inhabit. Just as from the vantage point of Adorno, Benjamin, Horkheimer, and others, however, there can be no genuinely critical thought that is not mediated in decisive ways by the history of its own genesis, thereby rendering the task of inheriting the refractory legacy of the Frankfurt School a difficult and ongoing undertaking. Martin Jay's powerful new study provides us with a beautifully articulated path through the thicket of that inheritance, thoughtfully lingering along the way to illuminate central tropes and concerns that emerge from this constellation of writers. By focusing on the characteristic critical gesture that unites many Frankfurt School thinkers-that of immanent critique-Jay succeeds in opening up a productive and unfailingly fascinating perspective on a critical legacy that, even a century on, remains open and still to come. In Jay's masterful hands, the texts that constitute this legacy have lost none of their urgency and abiding interest. -- Gerhard Richter, L. Herbert Ballou University Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown University
Throughout these thought-provoking studies Martin Jay's characteristic lucidity and unrivalled command of the relevant source material is on display. Jay is sensitive both to the socio-political contexts of Frankfurt School thinking and to the continuing relevance of the School's legacy. Even those steeped in the tradition of Critical Theory will learn something new from his wide-ranging and sometimes provocative reflections. -- Peter Dews, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Essex
That Martin Jay is not only the leading historian of the Frankfurt School, but one of its most creative and interesting practitioners in the third generation, becomes irrevocably apparent in this superb collection of articles. Circling around the notion of "immanent critique", these articles explore the viability of some of this tradition's core ideas in a time of political turbulences and postcolonial challenges. In so doing, Martin Jay teaches us how to actualize Critical Theory without credulously sticking to the original texts. -- Axel Honneth