A program that consists of faculty from over 34 departments across Arts & Humanities, the Social Science, and the schools of Law and Education, Critical Theory at Berkeley has been at forefront of producing scholarship takes on the daunting task of answering the unprecedented complexities and challenges of economics, politics, culture and the arts—and, indeed, of everyday life.
What is Critical Theory?
Critical Theory, at its heart, is an interdisciplinary project that aims to go beyond simply understanding social structures and towards transforming them.
As an intellectual project, Critical Theory draws its roots back to the Frankfurt School, a group of German intellectuals in the 1930s and 40s who, in the midst of global crisis, turned the insights of social theory, literature, philosophy, media studies, and history towards the goal of political and social emancipation. The idea of “critique” they developed came out of formulations in 18th and 19th-century philosophy, most significantly the work of Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Freud among a few key others.
Since the post-war period, Critical Theory has taken on new forms, and the problem of “critique" has been hotly debated. As a result, Critical Theory is no longer confined to the Frankfurt School (Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas and Leo Lowenthal), nor the School's nemesis, Hannah Arendt, although these thinkers remain central to its meaning. The program at Berkeley engages an expansive understanding of Critical Theory, especially beyond Europe.
There are many contemporary examples of Critical Theory, including postcolonial theory, critical race theory, critical pedagogy, and forms of queer, feminist, and trans studies. Rather than produce a single, orthodox vision of Critical Theory, the program at Berkeley builds out from these crucial inherited traditions to engage global formations and emerging crises.
A program that consists of faculty from over 34 departments across Arts & Humanities, the Social Science, and the schools of Law and Education, Critical Theory at Berkeley has been at forefront of producing scholarship takes on the daunting task of answering the unprecedented complexities and challenges of economics, politics, culture and the arts—and, indeed, of everyday life.