The Cultural Theory of the Frankfurt School

Undergraduate catalogue

An examination of the work of the Frankfurt School of critical social theory on questions of modern culture. The course will focus on the textual debates among Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, and Siegfried Kracauer on the complex relationship of aesthetics and politics. These often polemical socio-philosophical texts attempt to map a contemporary cultural landscape reconfigured by the "culture industry," transformations in perception, the emergence of the mass, and new technologies of reproduction such as radio, cinema, and television. One three-hour seminar. Taught in English.