The aim of this course is to introduce some central methods and motifs in critical theory. In this seminar, the term “critical theory” is not limited to particular traditions or philosophical schools (like the “Frankfurt School”) but has a broader meaning: a theory is to be called ‘critical’ if it...
A century ago, in the winter of 1920/21, Walter Benjamin penned his essay "Critique of Violence," which has lost none of its fascination today, despite (or perhaps because of) its apodictic style, its opaque use of metaphor, and its erratic argumentation. During the last 30 years, it has become a...
"Commodification", "propertization", and "objectification" are all concepts which serve both as descriptive tools for certain tendencies in the historical development of modern, capitalistic social relations and as critical diagnoses of their particular distortions or pathologies. In the seminar, we will first try to highlight the analytic specificity of each phenomenon...
»Vernunftkritik« klingt heute altmodisch, nach einer abgelegten Debatte aus den 1980er Jahren. Doch sind die Fragen, die in der eher unglückselig verlaufenden sogenannten »Foucault-Habermas-Debatte« gestellt wurden, nie wirklich abgegolten worden. Im Seminar werden wir daher die Rolle von Vernunftkritik in der ganzen Bandbreite der Kritischen Theorie – von Theodor W....