Modern Culture and Critical Theory: Art, Politics and the Legacy of the Frankfurt School - Softcover

University Of Wisconsin Press

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299120848 ISBN 13: 9780299120849

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989

Synopsis

Since the 1930s the theoretical writings of the Frankfurt School have provided tools for analyses of political and cultural developments in Europe and the United States. Initially a response to Hitler's reign of terror, this influential wing of Western Marxism focused on analyzing the totalitarian potential inherent in any democratic society. Are the arguments of the Frankfurt School still relevant? ""Modern Culture and Critical Theory"" investigates this question in the context of important issues in contemporary cultural politics: neo-conservatism and new social movements, discontents with modernity and debates on postmodernism, the political hegemony of Ronald Reagan and the cultural hegemony of structuralism and poststructuralism. Throughout, Berman argues that the analysis of political processes must have an aesthetic component. The legacy of the Frankfurt School, he concludes, is one that can tell us much about our contemporary society. It offers us an alternative to the obvious conservatism in the political arena and the less obvious but significant conservatism of some contemporary critical theory.

About this title

About the Author

Russell Berman is professor of German and comparative literature at Stanford University. He is the author of The Rise of the Modern German Novel: Crisis and Charisma.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299120848
• ISBN 13: 9780299120849
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 285