num_pages: 144
description: Critical Theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose-and if at all possible cure-the ills of society particularly fascism and capitalism. In this book Stephen Eric Bronner provides sketches of leadingrepresentatives of the critical tradition (such as George Lukcs and Ernst Bloch Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas) as well as many of its seminal texts and empirical investigations. This Very Short Introduction sheds light on the cluster of concepts and themesthat set critical theory apart from its more traditional philosophical competitors. Bronner explains and discusses concepts such as method and agency alienation and reification the culture industry and repressive tolerance non-identity and utopia. He argues for the introduction of new categoriesand perspectives for illuminating the obstacles to progressive change and focusing upon hidden transformative possibilities. Only a critique of critical theory can render it salient for a new age. That is precisely what this very short introduction provides.
language: English
title: Critical Theory: A Very Short Introduction
publisher: Oxford University Press