Frankfurt School Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This introduction contextualizes and evaluates Herbert Marcuse’s the accompanying, previously untranslated review of John Dewey’s Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Marcuse’s critique of pragmatism is indebted to Max Horkheimer’s claim that... more

This introduction contextualizes and evaluates Herbert Marcuse’s the accompanying, previously untranslated review of John Dewey’s Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Marcuse’s critique of pragmatism is indebted to Max Horkheimer’s claim that pragmatism is an example of “traditional” theory and reduces thought to mere instrument in service of external ends. Unlike Horkheimer, Marcuse concedes that Dewey, unlike the logical positivists, attempted to develop a material logic of ends. However, he concludes that the attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. I place this conclusion in the context of Marcuse’s critique of technological reason. Lastly, I defend Dewey from the charge of crude instrumentalism and delineate Marcuse’s and Dewey’s critical disagreement on science’s capacity for self-reflection.

In this book, I identify contemporary developments on the theme of vulnerability within critical theory while also seeking to reconstruct an idea of vulnerability that enables an articulation of the political and demonstrates how it is... more

In this book, I identify contemporary developments on the theme of vulnerability within critical theory while also seeking to reconstruct an idea of vulnerability that enables an articulation of the political and demonstrates how it is socially produced. Philosophies that take vulnerability as a moral object contribute to rendering the political, as the site of a specific power and action, foreign to vulnerability. The notion of recognition offered by critical theory does not correct this deficit. Instead, I argue that vulnerability, as susceptibility to a harmful event, is above all a breach of normative expectations. I demonstrate that these expectations are not mental phenomena but are situated between subjects and must even be conceived as institutions. On this basis I argue that the link between the political and vulnerability cannot be reduced to the institutional implementation of moral principles. Rather I seek to rethink the political by taking vulnerability as the starting point and thereby understand the political as simultaneously referring to the advent of a world, the emergence of a relation, and the appearance of a political subject.

'@ is For Activism' examines the transformation of politics through digital media, including digital television, online social networking and mobile computing. Joss Hands maps out how political relationships have been reconfigured and new... more

'@ is For Activism' examines the transformation of politics through digital media, including digital television, online social networking and mobile computing. Joss Hands maps out how political relationships have been reconfigured and new modes of cooperation, deliberation and representation have emerged. This analysis is applied to the organisation and practice of alternative politics, showing how they have developed and embraced the new political and technological environment. Hands offers a comprehensive critical survey of existing literature, as well as an original perspective on networks and political change. He includes many case studies including the anti-war and global justice movements, peer production, user created TV and 'Twitter' activism. "@ is For Activism" is essential for activists and students of politics and media. Note the version here is a pre-print proof which differs from the published version and should not be cited from.

First this paper will discuss Michel Foucault foundation of his ideas, and why more than a critical intervention from scholars of color is needed. Moreover, we should be aware that not only were Foucault’s deficient of political ideas or... more

First this paper will discuss Michel Foucault foundation of his ideas, and why more than a critical intervention from scholars of color is needed. Moreover, we should be aware that not only were Foucault’s deficient of political ideas or a vision of what the world ought to be, but in neglecting question of the human he indirectly made a very ontological statement “only white lives matter”. His ideas are well-known already and I don’t want to site them there or spend a lot of paper space discussing them, what is more important is who and what he represent. Secondly, I want to turn my focus on Marx, to argue that Marxism and Marxist do not and cannot provide us a solution to black suffering. I am not against Marxism, I believe that capitalist exploitation dominates the world and I am against it, but the ontological question “what and who is human?” when answer by the Marxist is always the white, worker, male. So if blacks are outside of human whose racial experiences are not relevant then how can we understanding the student slave, the worker slave, when chattel slavery has already ended? If black people are surplus, therefore disposable, then what is left of Marx? If black people do not have function or purpose within capitalism? I want to follow up with offering an alternative, the work of black feminist Sylvia Wynter is vital to understanding the racialization and the category of human in western modernity (Weheliye, 2014), I will attempt to piece together her call for a new humanism, alongside and relation to work by Afro-Pessimist and Critical Race Theory to gain a perspective of racialization and what does that mean for black students in the Afterlife. In all, I want to argue that the afterlife should be a more proper way of looking at history and progress here in the West. This will cause us to rethink slavery and freedom. Hopefully I will be able to messy picture of schooling where black children are posted to a social death but life is also worth living. To life a life in death or black life is not white social life.

Tarihin her döneminde, o dönemin politik özeliğine, düşünme tarzına, teknolojik gelişmelerine ve zevklerine bağlı olarak değişik sanatsal anlatım biçimleri doğar. Zevk, insan doğasının bilinmeyen yönlerinin ortaya çıkartılması kadar,... more

Tarihin her döneminde, o dönemin politik özeliğine, düşünme tarzına, teknolojik gelişmelerine ve zevklerine bağlı olarak değişik sanatsal anlatım biçimleri doğar. Zevk, insan doğasının bilinmeyen yönlerinin ortaya çıkartılması kadar, toplumsal yapıyı belirleyen ve sınırları az çok belli olan yaşam koşullarına bağlı olarak biçimlenir. Kralların etkin olduğu dönemindeki sanatta, portelerde hükümdarlara yaraşır bir görünüm sergileme hevesi baskındı. Bu ancak ve en iyi portelerde yapılabiliyordu. Aynı şey burjuvazinin egemen olmaya başladığı dönemde de geçerli bir savdır. Aydınlanma Çağı ve akabinde sanayi devriminin bütün hayatı olduğu gibi sanatı da kökten değiştirmesi kaçınılmazdı. Bunu şu şekilde formüle edebiliriz; Bu sanatsal üretimler; toplumun gereksinimlerinden ve geleneklerinden doğar ve bir şekilde bunları yansıtır. Toplumsal yapıdaki ve teknolojideki her değişim beraberinde sanatsal anlatım biçimlerini de dönüştürdü. 19. yy. makinelerin hüküm sürdüğü dönemde sadece portrelerdeki yüzler değişmedi, bunun yanı sıra sanatsal üretim şekilleri de değişime uğradı. Bu yeni teknolojik gelişmeler (litografi vb.) sanatın geçireceği evrimde çok önemli belirleyenler oldu. Bu değişimi en iyi gözlemleyebileceğimiz, bu değişimin getirdiği sorunları, açmazları ya da olanakları en iyi anlayabileceğimiz metinlerden bir tanesi de Walter Benjamin'in 1935 yazıp yayınladığı " Tekniğin Olanaklarıyla Yeniden Üretilebildiği Çağda Sanat Yapıtı " adlı eseridir. Bu yazıda da konu edeceğimiz metin olan bu makale, yazıldığı tarihten bu yana tartışma konusu olmuş, birçok çalışmaya kaynaklık etmiş bir çalışmadır. Makale temel olarak kapitalizmin yükseliş dönemine denk gelen bir çağda sanat yapıtının bundan etkilenmesi üzerine durmaktadır. Bunu da teknolojinin sanatsal üretimi ve teknolojiyle aracılanmış sanat ürünün yeniden üretimini sorunsallaştırmaktadır. Walter Benjamin'in de dâhil olduğu Frankfurt Okulu modern toplum üzerine yaptıkları eleştirilerinde, teknolojinin ve bu teknolojinin sermayedarlarının toplum üzerinde kurmuş oldukları tahakküm ilişkileri üzerine durmaktadırlar. Eleştirel teoriye dâhil olan bu okul ağırlıklı olarak kültürel çalışmalar ile kültürel üretim, ekonomi politik, kültürel yapıtların sınıfsal mücadelede aracı haline gelmesine kadar çeşitli alanlarda tezler ortaya koymuşlardır. Her ne kadar Benjamin okulun diğer üyelerinden belli oranda farklı düşünse de kültürün toplumu manipüle ettiğine inanırlar. Bunu da 'Kültür Endüstrisi' olarak kavramlaştırdıkları tezlerinde kültürün toplum tarafından değil egemen olan sınıflar tarafından üretildiğine bağlamaktadırlar. Buda mevcut olan haksız durumun devam etmesinden başka işe yaramadığını söylemektedirler. Sanatın yeniden üretilmesini izlerini Marx'ta da görebilmekteyiz. Marksist teorinin özünü oluşturan kapitalist üretimin eleştirisi ve karşı bir sistem oluşturma istenci sanatta da kendisini göstermiştir. Seri üretimin bütün alanlarda etkin olduğu bir dönemde bunu sanatta da kendini göstermesi kaçınılmazdı. Giséle Freund Fotoğraf ve Toplum adlı eserinde sanatın tekniğin olanaklarıyla yetiden üretim döneminde zanaat olmaktan çıkıp nasıl sanayi dönüştüğünü şu cümleleriyle belirtmektedir: " 1867 yılında atölyede yüzden fazla işçi çalışıyordu ve o döneme kadar bir zanaat olarak kabul edilen çoğaltım mesleği, artık bir sanayi dalına dönüşüyordu. " (Freund, 2006:91) Benjamin bu tartışmaların ayyuka çıktığı bir dönemde bunu yazması birazda dönemin tartışma çerçevesiyle bağlantılıydı. Sanatta kapitalist üretimin en belirgin olduğu alan kuşkusuz görüntüydü ve bununla bağlantılı olarak fotoğrafçılıktı. Sanat, fotoğraf makinesinin bulunmasıyla büyük dönüşüme uğramıştır.

Oliver Kohns, Till van Rahden und Martin Roussel, Autorität. Krise, Konstruktion
und Konjunktur, München 2016, S. 307-318.

My thesis in this paper is that anxiety plays a central role in the shaping of modern subjectivity and agency. My argument is that anxiety in contemporary society is distinct from the forms of anxiety that plagued industrial society in... more

My thesis in this paper is that anxiety plays a central role in the shaping of modern subjectivity and agency. My argument is that anxiety in contemporary society is distinct from the forms of anxiety that plagued industrial society in that it is a more complete and totalizing phenomenon that acts to constrict selfhood and regress the ego to more primitive states. As a result, the modern self loses its capacities for civic life and consciousness as anxiety grips the psyche. In what follows, I will reconstruct the theory of anxiety as a relational, and hence social phenomenon, that interpenetrates with the development of the self. Next, I will explore the thesis that a civic self is a specific manifestation of our psychic and agentic capacity for cognition and affect for “others,” one that, as it is reduced, is replaced with a need for security and group narcissism. After this, I will explore how the dynamics of contemporary society (what I call the “cybernetic society”) enhances and totalizes anxiety in such a way that withdrawal from civic life gives further impetus to the psyche’s need for connection to stave off existential angst, giving more force to strivings for group identification and exclusion of others.

Puts 'Dialectic of Enlightenment' in an historical context and shows hows the concept of 'mimesis' prefigures more recent cognitive interest in the emotional foundations of human knowledge and human interaction. The paper builds bridges... more

Puts 'Dialectic of Enlightenment' in an historical context and shows hows the concept of 'mimesis' prefigures more recent cognitive interest in the emotional foundations of human knowledge and human interaction. The paper builds bridges between the critical legacy of the Frankfurt School and recent more empirically-oriented work on cognition, using Nietzsche and Winnicott as a bridge. It suggests we shouldn't be too attached to Adorno and Horkheimer's dialectical form of argument, and should focus instead on their early interdisicplinary analyses of embodied forms of knowledge.

1923 yılında bir grup aydın tarafından Marksizmi yeniden düşünmek amacıyla kurulan Frankfurt Okulu, sanattan sosyolojiye, eğitimden psikolojiye dek pek çok alanıda yeni fikirlerin ortaya konmasında etkili olmuştur. Bu alanların yanı sıra,... more

1923 yılında bir grup aydın tarafından Marksizmi yeniden düşünmek amacıyla kurulan Frankfurt Okulu, sanattan sosyolojiye, eğitimden psikolojiye dek pek çok alanıda yeni fikirlerin ortaya konmasında etkili olmuştur. Bu alanların yanı sıra, Okul’a bağlı birçok aydın edebiyat alanında da çalışmalar yapmış, yaptıkları çalışmalar edebiyat kuramlarının modern dünyayla olan ilişkisini yeniden düşünmek açısından faydalı olmuştur. Makalenin temel fikri Frankfurt Okulu’nun modern edebi kuramların seyrini belirlediğidir. Bu çalışmada önce Frankfurt Okulu tanıtılacak, sonrasında ise bu ekole bağlı olarak edebiyata dair fikir üreten düşünürler ve onların fikirlerinden bahsedilecektir.

This document critically reviews the theories of the avant-garde of both the Left and the Right put forward between the 1920s – the time of the vigorous assertion of the avant-garde – and the late 1970s – the beginning of the conservative... more

This document critically reviews the theories of the avant-garde of both the Left and the Right put forward between the 1920s – the time of the vigorous assertion of the avant-garde – and the late 1970s – the beginning of the conservative turn led by Regan and Thatcher and reflected in cultural, change. The focus is on modern autonomous art and the historical avant-garde art movements. Art is first of all put in its place by locating it in the context of the institutional framework of modern society. This includes historical references to the emergence of the modern concept of art and of the philosophical discipline of aesthetics. The review of the theories opens with analyses of Ortega y Gassett and Poggioli’s proposals dating from 1925 and 1968 respectively. Important among the theories of the Left are those of the representatives of Critical Theory such as Lukács, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse and Bürger. Among the Right, both the German and American Neo-conservatives are considered, Gehlen, Ritter and Marquard representing the former and Bell that latter. The analysis closes with final reflections on the concepts of the autonomy of art and of the avant-garde which become comprehensible only within the context of rationalised and disenchanted (i.e. disillusioned and enlightened) modern society.

Prólogo a Th. W. Adorno: Problemas de Filosofía Moral. Buenos Aires: Las Cuarenta. 2019

Es war wie das gleichsam letzte Aufflackern des "roten Jahrzehnts" der 1970er Jahre, als in den Jahren 1983 und 1984, vor nun einem Vierteljahrhundert, zwei Aufsatz-Bände des politischen Psychologen und Theoretikers Peter Brückner im... more

Es war wie das gleichsam letzte Aufflackern des "roten Jahrzehnts" der 1970er Jahre, als in den Jahren 1983 und 1984, vor nun einem Vierteljahrhundert, zwei Aufsatz-Bände des politischen Psychologen und Theoretikers Peter Brückner im Westberliner Wagenbach-Verlag erschienen. Die dort versammelten Aufsätze und Artikel bilden einen nicht unwesentlichen Teil des denkerischen Nachlasses des 1982, kurz vor seinem 60.Geburtstag viel zu früh verstorbenen Vordenker der westdeutschen Neuen Linken.

This inaugural lecture outlines the contours of a history of critical thinking. Drawing on case studies from the 19th, 20th, and 21st-century humanities, it draws attention to demands that critical thinking makes on the self – that is, to... more

This inaugural lecture outlines the contours of a history of critical thinking. Drawing on case studies from the 19th, 20th, and 21st-century humanities, it draws attention to demands that critical thinking makes on the self – that is, to skills, virtues, attitudes, and capacities characteristic of what one might call a “critical self.” On the one hand, the cultivation of such qualities in research and teaching alike is a theme that allows for cross-disciplinary comparisons of the kind that historians of the humanities like to make. On the other, it touches directly on questions of contemporary relevance. What does it mean to foster critical thinking skills in contemporary academia? Is critical thinking compatible with care and compassion, or does it cultivate a stance of detachment, perhaps even of suspicion? Is critical thinking a much-needed remedy against fake news, or are societies struggling with political polarization and diminishing trust in public institutions likely to benefit more from a “postcritical turn”?

This paper presents a literature review of critical information systems (IS) research. Specifically, it focuses on how IS researchers have responded to Myers and Klein’s (2011) call to consider critical approaches and theorists in... more

This paper presents a literature review of critical information systems (IS) research. Specifically, it focuses on how IS researchers have responded to Myers and Klein’s (2011) call to consider critical approaches and theorists in addition Bourdieu, Foucault and Habermas. The review identifies and discusses three types of critical IS research “beyond Bourdieu, Foucault and Habermas”: work based on a) (other) critical grand social theories, b) postcolonialism and c) data-focused critical methods (i.e., Capabilities Approach, Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Heuristics and Design, Frame Analysis and Phronetic Enquiry). Based on the literature review, the paper maps the landscape of critical approaches and theories and identify their origins. This analysis is helpful for IS researchers interested in conducting critical IS research by charting the range of critical research approaches beyond Bourdieu, Foucault and Habermas.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar o modus operandi da produção audiovisual intitulada “Esclarecimento” com discussões importantes para o campo da Comunicação ao analisar por meio da Teoria Crítica da Sociedade elementos... more

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar o modus operandi da produção audiovisual intitulada “Esclarecimento” com discussões importantes para o campo da Comunicação ao analisar por meio da Teoria Crítica da Sociedade elementos provindos da filosofia kantiana, sobretudo o uso da Razão Emancipatória, o processo de transformação da Razão em instrumento a serviço do capitalismo, a produção da Indústria Cultural e os impactos que essa instrumentalização provocaram no homem. O vídeo foi produzido em formato de revista eletrônica, possui uma linguagem acessível com fins de divulgação científica. É constituído por quatro matérias, à maneira de videotape, com imagens e vídeos alusivos aos conceitos-chave da Teoria Crítica. Há também uma entrevista exclusiva com um professor Doutor sobre as perspectivas de emancipação ou não do indivíduo, proposto pela teoria.

Umwelt, Technik & Risiko – damit verbinden wir eine Symptomatik, die für die Moderne von bestandskritischer Bedeutung ist. Soweit herrscht Einigkeit. Kontrovers sind hingegen Diagnose und Therapie. Ist die industriegesellschaftliche... more

Umwelt, Technik & Risiko – damit verbinden wir eine Symptomatik, die für die Moderne von bestandskritischer Bedeutung ist. Soweit herrscht Einigkeit. Kontrovers sind hingegen Diagnose und Therapie. Ist die industriegesellschaftliche Risikoproblematik auf die In- und Extensivierung der Inanspruchnahme der Natur zurückzuführen? Oder herrschen kulturelle Veränderungen in der Wahrnehmung von Unsicherheiten vor? Diesen Fragen folgend werden Probleme der Forschung, der Gesellschaftstheorie und des Risikomanagements erörtert.

Fromm’s social psychology underestimates the discursive elements of racism and antisemitism in favor of a Marxist approach that overemphasizes the“lower-middle-class”origins of prejudice. Fromm’s useful major contribution to the 'new... more

Fromm’s social psychology underestimates the discursive elements of racism and antisemitism in favor of a Marxist approach that overemphasizes the“lower-middle-class”origins of prejudice. Fromm’s useful major contribution to the 'new racism' literature, however, is his empirical study of the psychology of social character, originally designed to understand the social origins of Nazism.

While critical commentary on Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) has been various and divided, few have questioned its seismic importance for the development of Western Marxism. Strangely though, in view... more

While critical commentary on Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) has been various and divided, few have questioned its seismic importance for the development of Western Marxism. Strangely though, in view both of the recognized importance of this text and the expanding contemporary appreciation of Adorno’s work, Dialectic of Enlightenment has regularly generated negative commentary and critical animosity. In view of this critical context, the aim of this paper is not to mount a global defense of Dialectic of Enlightenment, but rather to reconstruct certain parameters of the book that are missed in the common criticism that Horkheimer and Adorno relinquish the project of enlightenment and lapse into indeterminate ahistorical generalization. I argue that the mutation in Marxist thought in Dialectic of Enlightenment, to be properly understood, needs to be seen as intrinsically involved with the particular linguistic turn developed in this text. The revised project of enlightenment it elaborates hinges on a reflection on the language of the epic and the novel and a series of textual operations that are central to this reflection: reporting, description, stylization, parody, reading. In this this way Dialectic of Enlightenment anticipates Adorno’s later thinking about and through the language of the epic and the novel, which plays a fundamental if generally underappreciated role in his work. These textual operations become intrinsic to a revised conception of what it means to think historically, to imagine historical difference and progression, in the wake of the purported ruin of systems of enlightenment thought, after the demise of any margin of critical difference offered by cultural criticism and artistic reflection, and after the foundering of the revolutionary aspirations of the European left. This reconception of enlightenment thought in Dialectic of Enlightenment follows from the claim that intrinsic social contradiction is no longer operative as a driver of historical development, and a corresponding recognition that forms of thought predicated on negation and contradiction have lost their critical purchase. Where received modes of Marxist and Hegelian dialectic may have been appropriate for an ostensibly liberal phase of capitalism, in which social contradictions propel historical development, in the ruins of this historical phase, thought is challenged to develop modes that integrate the manifest irrationality of its social context. This paper attempts to describe certain of these modes in its account of various textual operations developed in Dialectic of Enlightenment, operations that contribute to this text’s reimagining of what thought might look like in the middle of the twentieth century.

This article attempts to present the unity as well as the difference between Hegel's and Dewey's social philosophical approaches to struggles for recognition. It argues that interpreting Dewey's Lectures in China as a commentary on Hegel... more

This article attempts to present the unity as well as the difference between Hegel's and Dewey's social philosophical approaches to struggles for recognition. It argues that interpreting Dewey's Lectures in China as a commentary on Hegel sheds new light on Dewey's social philosophy as a recognition theoretical whole. Furthermore, the resulting "experimentalist" account of recognitive relations, norms and values might turn out to present a fruitful perspective in contemporary discussions on recognition.

The purpose of this paper is to expose, and provide a possible solution to, an internal inconsistency in Axel Honneth’s critical theory of recognition. Honneth requires a way of making his claim that misrecognition causes subjective... more

The purpose of this paper is to expose, and provide a possible solution to, an internal inconsistency in Axel Honneth’s critical theory of recognition. Honneth requires a way of making his claim that misrecognition causes subjective suffering, with the potential to cognitively disclose injustice, consistent with his account of ideological recognition as a form of misrecognition which engenders compliance with an oppressive social order. Only by reconciling these claims – that is, by showing how ideological recognition can engender an acceptance of domination whilst at the same time causing subjective suffering - can Honneth’s theory of recognition retain the kind of critical capacities he desires. As a means of achieving this reconciliation, I propose the notion of ‘invisible suffering’. In the case of ideological recognition, I suggest, the suffering caused by misrecognition has its disclosive power blocked by the faux-affirmation that the ideology discursively accords, and this renders the experience of suffering, qua painful indicator of social injustice, invisible to the subject. Drawing on insights from medical sociology, I show how the need to supplement Honneth’s theory of recognition with the idea of ‘invisible suffering’ is revelatory of the kind of critical theoretical stance demanded by his ontological commitments.

Cet article propose un panorama du rapport ambivalent qu’adoptent les principaux auteurs de l’École de Francfort vis-à-vis de la conception kantienne des Lumières. En passant par Habermas, Marcuse, Horkheimer et Adorno, nous nous... more

Cet article propose un panorama du rapport ambivalent qu’adoptent les principaux auteurs de l’École de Francfort vis-à-vis de la conception kantienne des Lumières. En passant par Habermas, Marcuse, Horkheimer et Adorno, nous nous proposons de montrer en quoi c’est à la fois avec et contre Kant que s’articule la Théorie critique. Nous tâcherons de montrer par ailleurs en quoi la première génération de l’École de Francfort reconduit en un sens l’aporie qu’elle soulignait déjà au sein de la posture kantienne quant à l’articulation entre théorie et pratique émancipatrice.

Lässt sich die politische Problemlage unserer Zeit literarisch erfassen? Was ist die Rolle von Literatur im globalen Kapitalismus? Lässt sich ein dauerhafter Arbeitszusammenhang von Autorinnen und Autoren organisieren? Diesen Fragen... more

Lässt sich die politische Problemlage unserer Zeit literarisch erfassen? Was ist die Rolle von Literatur im globalen Kapitalismus? Lässt sich ein dauerhafter Arbeitszusammenhang von Autorinnen und Autoren organisieren? Diesen Fragen widmete sich im April 2015 eine Schriftstellertagung unter dem Titel „Richtige Literatur im Falschen?“, die im Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus stattfand. In Zentrum stand die Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen Literatur, Engagement und kapitalistischer Gesellschaft. Der Band „Richtige Literatur im Falschen?“ zeichnet die Tagung dokumentarisch nach und präsentiert darüber hinaus aktuelle Statements der Beteiligten. Mit Beiträgen von Ann Cotten, Annett Gröschner, Joachim Helfer, Jan Loheit, Thomas Meinecke, Norbert Niemann, Helmut Peitsch, Monika Rinck, Kathrin Röggla, David Salomon, Stefan Schmitzer, Erasmus Schöfer, Ingo Schulze, Ingar Solty, Enno Stahl, Thomas Wagner, Michael Wildenhain und Raul Zelik.

Si torni a guardare questo film allora, non come un documento interno alle vicende del comunismo italiano ma come un dramma, una lotta in cui l’uomo rischia di smarrirsi ritrovandosi prigioniero di quel consumismo che passo dopo passo lo... more

Si torni a guardare questo film allora, non come un documento interno alle vicende del comunismo italiano ma come un dramma, una lotta in cui l’uomo rischia di smarrirsi ritrovandosi prigioniero di quel consumismo che passo dopo passo lo consuma.

In this paper, I will examine the social conditions of post-crisis neoliberalism, in particular the social contradiction known as the “gig economy.” I will argue that despite its threats to human flourishing, the gig economy actually... more

In this paper, I will examine the social conditions of post-crisis neoliberalism, in particular the social contradiction known as the “gig economy.” I will argue that despite its threats to human flourishing, the gig economy actually improves upon certain dimensions of the mid-century economic structure of full-time work, and can serve as a proleptic way-station en route to socialism, even as it betrays that promise in the present. The gig economy, as the neoliberalized reductio ad absurdum of late capitalism, is a broken promise to the workers of the world. It is tragic not because it contradicts human nature, but because it comes so close to realizing and actualizing actual human potentials in a liberatory way. The fact that it does so instead in a parasitic manner only underlines its tragic nature. Without underlying changes in the nature of private property and social welfare systems, the gig economy is every bit as exploitative as the previous paradigms of full-time, stable working conditions critiqued by Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse.

Introducing Adorno's cultural criticism to the Dutch discussion

U radu se prikazuje Marcuseova recepcija Freudove psihoanalize. U tekstu se prvo osvrće na kritiku nekih ključnih mjesta istaknutijih Marcuseovih kritičara pokušavajući pokazati opravdanost kritike ili njezine možebitne nejasnosti.... more

U radu se prikazuje Marcuseova recepcija Freudove psihoanalize. U tekstu se prvo osvrće na kritiku nekih ključnih mjesta istaknutijih Marcuseovih kritičara pokušavajući pokazati opravdanost kritike ili njezine možebitne nejasnosti. Važnost Marcuseovog tematiziranja Freuda jest u tome što je Freudovu teoriju oplemenio dimenzijom povijesnosti. Naime, Freud je potrebu za potiskivanjem shvatio kao univerzalno načelo razvoja civilizacije. Marcuse, s druge pak strane, smatra da potiskivanja pripada povijesnoj epohi kada je još uvijek vladala oskudica materijalnih dobara u vanjskom svijetu. Preko pojmova »načelo izvedbe« i »višak potiskivanja« naznačuje se mogućnost nerepresivne civilizacije u kojoj rad postaje slobodna igra ljudskih aktivnosti.

It is a book in which both the genesis and development of the concept of the culture industry in the work of Adorno are scrutinized. The first chapter focuses on the context of the appearance of the Frankfurt Institut and theoretical... more

It is a book in which both the genesis and development of the concept of the culture industry in the work of Adorno are scrutinized. The first chapter focuses on the context of the appearance of the Frankfurt Institut and theoretical presuppositions of the critique of the culture industry. The second chapter approaches the "classical" formulation of this critique in the "Dialectic of the Enlightenment", stressing its three main sections -- "Concept of Enlightenment", "Culture Industry as Mass Deception" and "Elements of Anti-Semitism". The third chapter focuses on Adorno's sociological approaches concerning the culture industry, as it appears in works like "The Authoritarian Personality", "The Stars down to Earth", and his Theory of Semi-Erudition. The fourth chapter deals with Adorno's aesthetical approaches to the topic of the culture industry, focusing on books such as "Minima Moralia", "Philosophy of Modern Music", "Aesthetic Theory", as well as his writings about movies and television. Finally, the fifth and last chapter focuses on what happened to the culture industry since Adorno's death in terms of technological development (analogic and digital video, Internet, social media, etc.) and geo-political changes in the world (fall of the Berlin Wall with the subsequent bankrupt of the so-called "real socialism", etc.).

A commentary on the section »Schein und Ausdruck« of Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.