Critical Theory Reading List

Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History With a Cosmopolitan Purpose

Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, Part One, 11-17, On Property Right
G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, 178-196. translation: A. V. Miller (Oxford)
G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Preface, 181-209, 230-281 (pages 9-23, 219-240, 259325). Nisbet trans. (Cambridge)
Marx, 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte; Early Writings (Critique of Hegels Doctrine of
State, On the Jewish Question, A Contribution to a Critique of Hegels Philosophy of
Right, Critical Notes on the Article The King of Prussia and Social Reform), Grundrisse
(Introduction), Capital Vol.1 (Chpt. 1 Commodities), Capital. Vol. 3, (Chpt. 48 The
Trinity Formula)
Max Weber, "'Objectivity' in Social Science and Social Policy" (pages 50-113 from Weber, The
Methodology of the Social Sciences)
Antonio Gramsci. 1971[1930s]. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Hoare and Nowell Smith
eds. Book II, 1 and 2 (The Modern Prince and State and Civil Society, pgs 125-205);
Book III, 1 (The Study of Philosophy, pgs 323-377)
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (all)
Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life
Giorgio Agamben, What is an Apparatus?
Edward Said. Orientalism, Introduction, Chapter 1 (sections I and II) and Chapter 3 (section I)
Alain Badiou, Ethics
Alain Badiou, Logics of Worlds (Preface, Chpt. II.7)
Werner Bonefeld, Abstract Labour- Against Its Nature and on Its Time
Mariana Dalla Costa and Selma James, The power of women and the subversion of the
community
Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History, Capitalism as Religion and Walter
Benjamin, Critique of Violence, in Reflections, Peter Demetz, ed.

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (Chapter I, Conclusion)

Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe (Introduction and Chpts. 1, 2, 3, 4)
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord, The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy
Franz Fanon, Black Skins/White Masks (Chpt. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8)
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Vol. 1 part. 5 Right of Death and Power over Life
Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, Chpt. 2, 3, 11
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (Part I.1, III.1, III.3)
David Harvey, The Conditions of Postmodernity
Jurgen Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, Volume II: Chapters VI and VIII
Max Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernity or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (New left Review
essay version)
Gyorg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness (What is Orthodox Marxism? and
Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat)
Moishe Postone, Time, Labor and Social Domination
Gayathri Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak
Simmel, The Social Role of Money
Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life
Jean Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason Vol. 1 (Pt. 1 The Dogmatic Dialectic and the
Critical Dialectic
Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology,