Spring 2017 Independent Study on the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School

Professor Michael K Hays

Rodanthi Vardouli

Short description

This Independent Study centers on the writings of first generation Frankfurt school thinkers with
the objective of tracing the underlying questions that shaped their critiques of modern capitalist
society, which in turn paved the path for the formulation of novel modes of social theories of art;
modes that combine aesthetics and politics into a unified theory of change. This study will
explore how a critical philosophical approach to culture pushes away from a traditional
hermeneutical approach to cultural production and looks to highlight the sociopolitical historical
and ideological forces within which culture works and by which it is constrained. The studied
material spans a range of seminal theoretical writings examined in their respective historical and
political contexts (Marxism, capitalism). Parallel to positioning the texts in the context of their
production, the study aims at the extraction of the fundamental categories and critical-theoretical
lexicon through which cultural production is to be examined and set to action. Secondary texts
are expected to enable and enrich the reading of the primary sources at hand with the goal of
inquiring into how later generations repositioned themselves towards the writings of their
precursors. The ultimate goal of this Independent Study is to acquire the tools and methods
employed by social theories of art and artistic production.

Selective bibliography

Primary Sources
Gyrgy Lukcs. History and Class Consciousness; Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Cambridge,
Mass., MIT Press, 1971.
Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, and Harry Zohn. Illuminations. 1st Ed.] ed. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968.
Theodor W. Adorno, Gretel Adorno, and Rolf Tiedeman. Aesthetic Theory. Theory and History of
Literatur ; v. 88. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Max Horkheimer, and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment. New ed. London: Verso,
1979.
Secondary Sources
Eugene Lunn. Marxism and Modernism : an Historical Study of Lukcs, Brecht, Benjamin, and
Adorno. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982.
Andrew Arato, and Eike Gebhardt. The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. New York: Urizen
Books, 1978.
Ernst Bloch, and Fredric Jameson. Aesthetics and Politics. London: Verso, 1980.
Schedule of Meetings/ Plan of Completion

Meeting 1 Jan 31
Introductory meeting

Meeting 2 Feb 14
From: Gyrgy Lukcs' History and Class Consciousness.
Chapter: Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat
I. The Phenomenon of Reification
II. The Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought
III. The Standpoint of the Proletariat

Meeting 3 Feb 28
From Eugene Lunns Marxism and Modernism
Part II: Lukcs and Brecht
3. A Debate on Realism and Modernism
4. Paths Toward a Marxist Aesthetics
5. Stalinism, Nazism, and History

Meeting 4 March 7
Adornos essays on The Culture Industry and Commitment
From Benjamins Illuminations :
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Theses on the Philosophy of History

Meeting 5 March 21
Adornos Aesthetic Theory

Meeting 6 March 28
Benjamins Illuminations

Meeting 7 April 11
Selected texts from Blochs Aesthetics and Politics

Meeting 8 April 18
TBA / Overview

Final Paper Deadline: May 9