What does it mean to think and write within the tradition of critical theory now? How might we return to some of the classic themes of critical theory, acknowledging elisions over time, paths not taken, repetitions-with-a difference, even the return of the repressed? It seems important that we re-engage familiar terrain such as the critique of authoritarianism and fascism, media and mass culture, the relation between psychoanalysis and Marxism, the critique of oligarchical capital, etc.; but it also feels imperative that we confront some of critical theory’s (in particular, the Frankfurt School’s) unintended consequences, that we engage the New Right’s appropriation and repurposing of critical theory for the project of authoritarianism and radicalization, its fixation on the Frankfurt School as, in the words of our colleague Martin Jay, a “dialectic of counter-Enlightenment.” We pose the Critical Theory Commons as a place to reflect on what it might mean to think creatively about what the present and future theoretical, political, and methodological limitations and possibilities of critical theory are.
Please join us on the Second Fridays of the month during term time at 1-3pm in the Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall. Light refreshments will be served.
Each session has a background text to spark discussion. All graduate student and faculty affiliates (and prospective affiliates) are most welcome.
Fall Schedule (Second Fridays, 1-3pm):
Sept 12: CT Commons - The Critical Theory of the Right
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Thiel, Peter. “The Straussian Moment.” Politics and Apocalypse, edited by Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Michigan State University Press, 2007, pp. 189–218.
(Library Link) -
Moira, Weigel. “The Authoritarian Personality 2.0.” Polity, vol. 54, no. 1, 2022, pp. 146–180.
(Library Link)
Oct 10: CT Commons - Dialectics of Counter-Enlightenment
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Jay, Martin. “Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School as Scapegoate of the Lunatic Fringe.” Splinters In Your Eye : Frankfurt School Provocations, Verso Books, 2020, pp. 151–272.
(Library Link)
Nov 14: CT Commons - The Palestine Exception
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Makdisi, Ussama. “Beyond the Palestine Exception.” Critical Times, vol. 8, no. 1, 2025, pp. 1–32.
(Library Link) -
Elhalaby, Esmat. “Nakba Denial: On the Politics of History and Genocide.” Parapraxis, The Psychosocial Foundation, 2025, www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/nakba-denial.
(Link)
*For assistance accessing readings, please email critical_theory@berkeley.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Program in Critical Theory and the Townsend Center for the Humanities.