Climate of Critical Theory: Economies & Ecologies Today

precis: 2023 marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Institute for Social Research, also known as the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, as well as the 50th anniversary of Martin Jay’s classic history of the Institute, The Dialectical Imagination, which first introduced its work to an Anglophone popular audience. For a hundred years the Institute and its followers across many fields in the humanities and social sciences have advanced critical social and cultural analysis on topics including labor, the family, mass media, and authoritarianism. At the same time, it has been argued that their work spoke to a particular mid-century context of fascism, and that hagiographic reverence toward the Institute’s most famous figures has stifled new critical thought. On the heels of this centenary, this day-long workshop of scholars primarily from the New York region will revisit the legacy of the Frankfurt School and explore what forms “critical theory” takes today amidst new challenges including the end of work and climate catastrophe. (Jonathon Catlin, Prof. Joel Burges)