Critical theory

A critical theory is any approach to humanities and social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to
attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures.[1] With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it
argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals.
Some hold it to be an ideology,[2] others argue that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation.[3]
Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychoanalysis, film theory, literary
theory, cultural studies, history, communication theory, philosophy, and feminist theory.[4]

Critical Theory (capitalized) is a school of thought practiced by the Frankfurt School theoreticians Herbert
Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, and Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer described a
theory as critical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them".[5]
Although a product of modernism, and although many of the progenitors of Critical Theory were skeptical
of postmodernism, Critical Theory is one of the major components of both modern and postmodern
thought, and is widely applied in the humanities and social sciences today.[6][7][8]

In addition to its roots in the first-generation Frankfurt School, critical theory has also been influenced by
György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci. Some second-generation Frankfurt School scholars have been
influential, notably Jürgen Habermas. In Habermas's work, critical theory transcended its theoretical roots in
German idealism and progressed closer to American pragmatism. Concern for social "base and
superstructure" is one of the remaining Marxist philosophical concepts in much contemporary critical
theory.[9] The legacy of Critical Theory as a major offshoot of Marxism is controversial. The common
thread linking Marxism and Critical theory is an interest in struggles to dismantle structures of oppression,
exclusion, and domination.[10] Philosophical approaches within this broader definition include feminism,
critical race theory, post-structuralism, queer theory and forms of postcolonialism.[11][12]

History
Max Horkheimer first defined critical theory (German: Kritische Theorie) in his 1937 essay "Traditional and
Critical Theory", as a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast
to traditional theory oriented only toward understanding or explaining it. Wanting to distinguish critical
theory as a radical, emancipatory form of Marxist philosophy, Horkheimer critiqued both the model of
science put forward by logical positivism, and what he and his colleagues saw as the covert positivism and
authoritarianism of orthodox Marxism and Communism. He described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks
"to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them".[13] Critical theory involves a
normative dimension, either by criticizing society in terms of some general theory of values or norms
(oughts), or by criticizing society in terms of its own espoused values (i.e. immanent critique).[14]
Significantly, critical theory not only conceptualizes and critiques societal power structures, but also
establishes an empirically grounded model to link society to the human subject.[15] It defends the
universalist ambitions of the tradition, but does so within a specific context of social-scientific and historical
research.[15]

The core concepts of critical theory are that it should:

 be directed at the totality of society in its historical specificity (i.e., how it came to be
configured at a specific point in time)
improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including
geography, economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology
Postmodern critical theory is another major product of critical theory. It analyzes the fragmentation of
cultural identities in order to challenge modernist-era constructs such as metanarratives, rationality, and
universal truths, while politicizing social problems "by situating them in historical and cultural contexts, to
implicate themselves in the process of collecting and analyzing data, and to relativize their findings".[16]

Marx
Marx explicitly developed the notion of critique into the critique of ideology, linking it with the practice of
social revolution, as stated in the 11th section of his Theses on Feuerbach: "The philosophers have only
interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."[17] In early works, including The German
Ideology, Marx developed his concepts of false consciousness and of ideology as the interests of one
section of society masquerading as the interests of society as a whole.

Adorno and Horkheimer

One of the distinguishing characteristics of critical theory, as Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer
elaborated in their Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), is an ambivalence about the ultimate source or
foundation of social domination, an ambivalence that gave rise to the "pessimism" of the new critical theory
about the possibility of human emancipation and freedom.[18] This ambivalence was rooted in the historical
circumstances in which the work was originally produced, particularly the rise of Nazism, state capitalism,
and culture industry as entirely new forms of social domination that could not be adequately explained in
the terms of traditional Marxist sociology.[19][20]

For Adorno and Horkheimer, state intervention in the economy had effectively abolished the traditional
tension between Marxism's "relations of production" and "material productive forces" of society. The
market (as an "unconscious" mechanism for the distribution of goods) had been replaced by centralized
planning.[21]

Contrary to Marx's prediction in the Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, this
shift did not lead to "an era of social revolution" but to fascism and totalitarianism. As such, critical theory
was left, in Habermas's words, without "anything in reserve to which it might appeal, and when the forces
of production enter into a baneful symbiosis with the relations of production that they were supposed to
blow wide open, there is no longer any dynamism upon which critique could base its hope".[22] For
Adorno and Horkheimer, this posed the problem of how to account for the apparent persistence of
domination in the absence of the very contradiction that, according to traditional critical theory, was the
source of domination itself.

Habermas
In the 1960s, Habermas, a proponent of critical social theory,[23] raised the epistemological discussion to a
new level in his Knowledge and Human Interests (1968), by identifying critical knowledge as based on
principles that differentiated it either from the natural sciences or the humanities, through its orientation to
self-reflection and emancipation.[24] Although unsatisfied with Adorno and Horkheimer's thought in
Dialectic of Enlightenment, Habermas shares the view that, in the form of instrumental rationality, the era of
modernity marks a move away from the liberation of enlightenment and toward a new form of
enslavement.[9]: 6 In Habermas's work, critical theory transcended its theoretical roots in German idealism,
and progressed closer to American pragmatism.

Habermas's ideas about the relationship between modernity and rationalization are in this sense strongly
influenced by Max Weber. He further dissolved the elements of critical theory derived from Hegelian
German idealism, though his epistemology remains broadly Marxist. Perhaps his two most influential ideas
are the concepts of the public sphere and communicative action, the latter arriving partly as a reaction to
new post-structural or so-called "postmodern" challenges to the discourse of modernity. Habermas engaged
in regular correspondence with Richard Rorty, and a strong sense of philosophical pragmatism may be felt
in his thought, which frequently traverses the boundaries between sociology and philosophy.

Modern critical theorists

Contemporary philosophers and researchers who have focused on understanding and critiquing critical
theory include Nancy Fraser, Axel Honneth, Judith Butler, and Rahel Jaeggi. Honneth is known for his
works Pathology of Reason and The Legacy of Critical Theory, in which he attempts to explain critical
theory's purpose in a modern context.[25][26] Jaeggi focuses on both critical theory's original intent and a
more modern understanding that some argue has created a new foundation for modern usage of critical
theory.[25] Butler contextualizes critical theory as a way to rhetorically challenge oppression and inequality,
specifically concepts of gender.[27]

Honneth established a theory that many use to understand critical theory, the theory of recognition.[28] In
this theory, he asserts that in order for someone to be responsible for themselves and their own identity they
must be also recognized by those around them: without recognition from peers and society, critical theory
could not occur.

Like many others who put stock in critical theory, Jaeggi is vocal about capitalism's cost to society.
Throughout her writings, she has remained doubtful about the necessity and use of capitalism in regard to
critical theory.[29] Most of Jaeggi's interpretations of critical theory seem to work against the foundations of
Habermas and follow more along the lines of Honneth in terms of how to look at the economy through the
theory's lens.[30] She shares many of Honneth's beliefs, and many of her works try to defend them against
criticism Honneth has received.[31]

To provide a dialectical opposite to Jaeggi's conception of alienation as 'a relation of relationlessness',

Hartmut Rosa has proposed the concept of resonance.[32][33] Rosa uses this term to refer to moments when
late modern subjects experience momentary feelings of self-efficacy in society, bringing them into a
temporary moment of relatedness with some aspect of the world.[33] Rosa describes himself as working
within the critical theory tradition of the Frankfurt School, providing an extensive critique of late modernity
through his concept of social acceleration.[34] However his resonance theory has been questioned for
moving too far beyond the Adornoian tradition of "looking coldly at society".[35]

Schools and Derivates

Postmodern critical social theory

Focusing on language, symbolism, communication, and social construction, critical theory has been applied
in the social sciences as a critique of social construction and postmodern society.[7]

While modernist critical theory (as described above) concerns itself with "forms of authority and injustice
that accompanied the evolution of industrial and corporate capitalism as a political-economic system",
postmodern critical theory politicizes social problems "by situating them in historical and cultural contexts,
to implicate themselves in the process of collecting and analyzing data, and to relativize their findings".[16]
Meaning itself is seen as unstable due to social structures' rapid transformation. As a result, research focuses
on local manifestations rather than broad generalizations.

Postmodern critical research is also characterized by the crisis of representation, which rejects the idea that a
researcher's work is an "objective depiction of a stable other". Instead, many postmodern scholars have
adopted "alternatives that encourage reflection about the 'politics and poetics' of their work. In these
accounts, the embodied, collaborative, dialogic, and improvisational aspects of qualitative research are
clarified."[36]

The term critical theory is often appropriated when an author works in sociological terms, yet attacks the
social or human sciences, thus attempting to remain "outside" those frames of inquiry. Michel Foucault has
been described as one such author.[37] Jean Baudrillard has also been described as a critical theorist to the
extent that he was an unconventional and critical sociologist;[38] this appropriation is similarly casual,
holding little or no relation to the Frankfurt School.[39] In contrast, Habermas is one of the key critics of
postmodernism.[40]

Communication studies
When, in the 1970s and 1980s, Habermas redefined critical social theory as a study of communication,
with communicative competence and communicative rationality on the one hand, and distorted
communication on the other, the two versions of critical theory began to overlap to a much greater degree
than before.

Critical legal studies

Critical legal studies (CLS) is a school of critical theory that developed in the United States during the
1970s.[41] CLS adherents claim that laws are devised to maintain the status quo of society and thereby
codify its biases against marginalized groups.[42]

Immigration studies
Critical theory can be used to interpret the right of asylum[43] and immigration law.[44]

Critical management studies

Critical management studies (CMS) is a loose but extensive grouping of theoretically informed critiques of
management, business and organisation, grounded originally in a critical theory perspective. Today it
encompasses a wide range of perspectives that are critical of traditional theories of management and the
business schools that generate these theories.

Critical international relations theory

Critical international relations theory is a diverse set of schools of thought in international relations (IR) that
have criticized the theoretical, meta-theoretical and/or political status quo, both in IR theory and in
international politics more broadly – from positivist as well as postpositivist positions. Positivist critiques
include Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches and certain ("conventional") strands of social constructivism.
Postpositivist critiques include poststructuralist, postcolonial, "critical" constructivist, critical theory (in the
strict sense used by the Frankfurt School), neo-Gramscian, most feminist, and some English School
approaches, as well as non-Weberian historical sociology,[45] "international political sociology", "critical
geopolitics", and the so-called "new materialism"[46] (partly inspired by actor–network theory). All of these
latter approaches differ from both realism and liberalism in their epistemological and ontological premises.

Critical race theory

Critical race theory (CRT) is an interdisciplinary academic field focused on the relationships between social
conceptions of race and ethnicity, social and political laws, and media. CRT also considers racism to be
systemic in various laws and rules, and not based only on individuals' prejudices.[47][48] The word critical
in the name is an academic reference to critical theory rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.[49][50]

Critical Pedagogy
Critical theorists have widely credited Paulo Freire for the first applications of critical theory to
education/pedagogy, considering his best-known work to be Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a seminal text in
what is now known as the philosophy and social movement of critical pedagogy.[51][52] Dedicated to the
oppressed and based on his own experience helping Brazilian adults learn to read and write, Freire includes
a detailed Marxist class analysis in his exploration of the relationship between the colonizer and the
colonized. In the book, he calls traditional pedagogy the "banking model of education", because it treats the
student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. He argues that pedagogy should instead treat the
learner as a co-creator of knowledge.

In contrast to the banking model, the teacher in the critical-theory model is not the dispenser of all
knowledge, but a participant who learns with and from the students—in conversation with them, even as
they learn from the teacher. The goal is to liberate the learner from an oppressive construct of teacher versus
student, a dichotomy analogous to colonizer and colonized. It is not enough for the student to analyze
societal power structures and hierarchies, to merely recognize imbalance and inequity; critical theory
pedagogy must also empower the learner to reflect and act on that reflection to challenge an oppressive
status quo.[51][53]

Critical psychology
Critical psychology is a perspective on psychology that draws extensively on critical theory. Critical
psychology challenges the assumptions, theories and methods of mainstream psychology and attempts to
apply psychological understandings in different ways, often looking towards social change as a means of
preventing and treating psychopathology.

Critical criminology
Critical criminology applies critical theory to criminology. Critical criminology examines the genesis of
crime and the nature of justice in relation to factors such as class and status, Law and the penal system are
viewed as founded on social inequality and meant to perpetuate such inequality.[54][55] Critical criminology
also looks for possible biases in criminological research.[56]

Criticism
While critical theorists have often been called Marxist intellectuals, their tendency to denounce some
Marxist concepts and to combine Marxian analysis with other sociological and philosophical traditions has
resulted in accusations of revisionism by Orthodox Marxist and by Marxist–Leninist philosophers. Martin
Jay has said that the first generation of critical theory is best understood not as promoting a specific
philosophical agenda or ideology, but as "a gadfly of other systems".[57]

Critical theory has been criticized for not offering any clear road map to political action (praxis), often
explicitly repudiating any solutions.[58] Those objections mostly apply to first-generation Frankfurt School,
while the issue of politics is addressed in a much more assertive way in contemporary theory.[59]

Another criticism of critical theory "is that it fails to provide rational standards by which it can show that it
is superior to other theories of knowledge, science, or practice." Rex Gibson argues that critical theory
suffers from being cliquish, conformist, elitist, immodest, anti-individualist, naive, too critical, and
contradictory. Hughes and Hughes argue that Habermas' theory of ideal public discourse "says much about
rational talkers talking, but very little about actors acting: Felt, perceptive, imaginative, bodily experience
does not fit these theories".[60][61]

Some feminists argue that critical theory "can be as narrow and oppressive as the rationalization,
bureaucratization, and cultures they seek to unmask and change.[60][61]

Critical theory's language has been criticized as being too dense to understand, although "Counter
arguments to these issues of language include claims that a call for clearer and more accessible language is
anti-intellectual, a new 'language of possibility' is needed, and oppressed peoples can understand and
contribute to new languages."[61]

Bruce Pardy, writing for the National Post, argued that any challenges to the "legitimacy [of critical theory]
can be interpreted as a demonstration of their [critical theory's proponents'] thesis: the assertion of reason,
logic and evidence is a manifestation of privilege and power. Thus, any challenger risks the stigma of a
bigoted oppressor."[62]

Robert Danisch, writing for The Conversation, argued that critical theory, and the modern humanities more
broadly, focus too much on criticizing the current world rather than trying to make a better world.[63] Kittie
Helmick, writing for The Critic, argued that:[64]

In academic circles, there is a growing awareness that critical theory has passed its prime. Literary
scholars are seeking alternatives to deconstruction and denunciation, taking tentative steps
towards devising a collaborative approach to humanities research, peering into possibilities for
 anchoring their inquiries to physical reality. New ventures range from digital humanities projects,
interfacing dozens of scholars worldwide; to cognitive criticism, drawing on neuroscience and
psychology ... The endlessly self-referential and self-negating process of exposing problems and
undermining premises has exhausted itself. The only question is what will replace it, as it replaced
modernism in its turn.

— Kittie Helmick

See also
Modernism
Antipositivism
Cultural studies
Critical philosophy
Information criticism
Marxist cultural analysis
Outline of critical theory
Popular culture studies
Outline of organizational theory

Lists
List of critical theorists
List of works in critical theory

Journals
Constellations
Representations
Critical Inquiry
Telos
Law and Critique

References

Footnotes
1. "Critical theory" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-theory). Britannica. Retrieved
28 November 2022.
2. Disco, Cornelis. "Critical theory as ideology of the new class: Rereading Jürgen Habermas."
Theory and Society (1979): 159-214.
 3. Geuss, Raymond (1981). The Idea of a Critical Theory (https://archive.org/details/ideaofcritic
alth0000geus/page/2/mode/2up). Cambridge University Press. pp. 2–3. ISBN 0521240727.
"The very heart of the critical theory of society is its criticism of ideology. Their ideology is
what prevents the agents in the society from correctly perceiving their true situation and real
interests; if they are to free themselves from social repression, the agents must rid
themselves of ideological illusion."
4. "The Left Hemisphere" (https://www.versobooks.com/products/2321-the-left-hemisphere).
Verso. Retrieved 18 May 2023.
5. Horkheimer 1982, 244.
6. Ritzer, George (2008). "Sociological Theory". From Modern to Postmodern Social Theory
(and Beyond). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. pp. 567–568.
7. Agger, Ben (2012), "Ben Agger", North American Critical Theory After Postmodernism,
Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 128–154, doi:10.1057/9781137262868_7 (https://doi.org/10.1057%
2F9781137262868_7), ISBN 978-1349350391.
8. Critical Theory and Society: A Reader. Routledge. 1990.
9. Outhwaite, William (2009) [1988]. Habermas: Key Contemporary Thinkers (2nd ed.). Polity.
pp. 5–8. ISBN 978-0745643281.
10. Fuchs, Christian (2021). "What is Critical Theory?". Foundations of Critical Theory (https://d
x.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139196598.007). Routledge. pp. 17–51.
doi:10.1017/CBO9781139196598.007 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FCBO9781139196598.00
7).
11. Bohman, James; Flynn, Jeffrey; Celikates, Robin. "Critical Theory" (https://plato.stanford.ed
u/entries/critical-theory/). In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Winter 2019 ed.).
12. "Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide" (https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Theory-T
oday-A-User-Friendly-Guide/Tyson/p/book/9780367709426). Routledge & CRC Press.
Retrieved 18 May 2023.
13. Horkheimer 1982, p. 244.
14. Bohman, James (8 March 2005). "Critical Theory" (https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall201
6/entries/critical-theory/). In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Fall 2016 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20190613210654/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/critical-theor
y/) from the original on 13 June 2019.
15. Bohman, James; Flynn, Jeffrey; Celikates, Robin (2021), "Critical Theory" (https://plato.stanf
ord.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/critical-theory/), in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford
University, retrieved 10 June 2022
16. Lindlof & Taylor 2002, p. 49 (https://archive.org/details/qualitativecommu00lind/page/49):
"forms of authority and injustice that accompanied the evolution of industrial and corporate
capitalism as a political-economic system.
17. "Theses on Feuerbach" (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.ht
m). §XI. Marxists Internet Archive. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20150416221439/ht
tps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm) from the original on 16
April 2015. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
18. Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. [1947] 2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment,
translated by E. Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 242.
19. Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Horkheimer and
Adorno". In The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, translated by
F. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. p. 116: "Critical Theory was initially developed in
Horkheimer's circle to think through political disappointments at the absence of revolution in
the West, the development of Stalinism in Soviet Russia, and the victory of fascism in
Germany. It was supposed to explain mistaken Marxist prognoses, but without breaking
Marxist intentions."
20. Dubiel, Helmut. 1985. Theory and Politics: Studies in the Development of Critical Theory,
translated by B. Gregg. Cambridge, MA.
21. Dialectic of Enlightenment. p. 38: "[G]one are the objective laws of the market which ruled in
the actions of the entrepreneurs and tended toward catastrophe. Instead the conscious
decision of the managing directors executes as results (which are more obligatory than the
blindest price-mechanisms) the old law of value and hence the destiny of capitalism."
22. "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment", p. 118.
23. Katsiaficas, George N., Robert George Kirkpatrick, and Mary Lou Emery. 1987. Introduction
to Critical Sociology. Irvington Publishers. p. 26.
24. Laurie, Timothy, Hannah Stark, and Briohny Walker. 2019. "Critical Approaches to
Continental Philosophy: Intellectual Community, Disciplinary Identity, and the Politics of
Inclusion (https://www.academia.edu/38122177)". Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/201
91211120909/https://www.academia.edu/38122177) 11 December 2019 at the Wayback
Machine. Parrhesia 30:1–17. doi:10.1007/s10691-011-9167-4 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs1
0691-011-9167-4). (Discusses critical social theory as a form of self-reflection.)
25. Fazio, Giorgio (21 May 2021). "Situating Rahel Jaeggi in the Contemporary Frankfurt Critical
Theory". Critical Horizons. 22 (2): 116. doi:10.1080/14409917.2019.1676943 (https://doi.org/
10.1080%2F14409917.2019.1676943). S2CID 210490119 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/
CorpusID:210490119).
26. Nancy Fraser (1985). What’s critical about critical theory? The case of Habermas and
gender. New German Critique, 35, 97-131.
27. Gessen, Masha (9 February 2020). "Judith Butler Wants Us to Reshape Our Rage" (https://w
ww.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/judith-butler-wants-us-to-reshape-our-ra
ge). The New Yorker.
28. Boston, Timothy (May 2018). "New Directions for a Critical Theory of Work: Reading
Honneth Through Deranty". Critical Horizons. 19 (2): 111.
doi:10.1080/14409917.2018.1453287 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F14409917.2018.145328
7). S2CID 149532362 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:149532362).
29. Condon, Roderick (April 2021). "Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi, Capitalism: A
Conversation in Critical Theory". Irish Journal of Sociology. 29 (1): 129.
doi:10.1177/0791603520930989 (https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0791603520930989).
hdl:10468/10810 (https://hdl.handle.net/10468%2F10810). S2CID 225763936 (https://api.se
manticscholar.org/CorpusID:225763936).
30. Marco, Marco; Testa, Italo (May 2021). "Immanent Critique of Capitalism as a Form of Life:
On Rahel Jaeggi's Critical Theory" (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F14409917.2020.1719630).
Critical Horizons. 22 (2): 111. doi:10.1080/14409917.2020.1719630 (https://doi.org/10.108
0%2F14409917.2020.1719630). S2CID 214465382 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusI
D:214465382).
31. Fazio, Giorgio (21 May 2021). "Situating Rahel Jaeggi in the Contemporary Frankfurt Critical
Theory". Critical Horizons. 22 (2): 116. doi:10.1080/14409917.2019.1676943 (https://doi.org/
10.1080%2F14409917.2019.1676943). S2CID 210490119 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/
CorpusID:210490119).
32. Jaeggi, Rahel; Neuhouser, Frederick (2014). Alienation. New directions in critical theory.
New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-15198-6.
33. Rosa, Hartmut (2016). Resonanz: eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung (3. Aufl ed.). Berlin:
Suhrkamp. ISBN 978-3-518-58626-6.
34. Rosa, Hartmut (31 December 2013). Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity (https://
www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7312/rosa14834/html). Columbia University Press.
doi:10.7312/rosa14834 (https://doi.org/10.7312%2Frosa14834). ISBN 978-0-231-51988-5.
35. Brumlik, Micha (2016). Resonanz oder: Das Ende der kritischen Theorie [Resonance or: The
end of critical theory.] (in German). pp. 120–123.
36. Lindlof & Taylor 2002, p. 53.
37. Rivera Vicencio, E. (2012). "Foucault: His influence over accounting and management
research. Building of a map of Foucault's approach" (http://www.inderscience.com/info/inartic
le.php?artid=51466). International Journal of Critical Accounting. 4 (5/6): 728–756.
doi:10.1504/IJCA.2012.051466 (https://doi.org/10.1504%2FIJCA.2012.051466). Archived (ht
tps://web.archive.org/web/20180909035547/http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?
artid=51466) from the original on 9 September 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
38. "Introduction to Jean Baudrillard, Module on Postmodernity" (https://www.cla.purdue.edu/eng
lish/theory/postmodernism/modules/baudrillardpostmodernity.html). www.cla.purdue.edu.
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20180909035756/https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/
theory/postmodernism/modules/baudrillardpostmodernity.html) from the original on 9
September 2018. Retrieved 16 June 2017.
39. Kellner, Douglas (22 April 2005). "Jean Baudrillard" (https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2
015/entries/baudrillard/). In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Winter 2015 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived (https://web.arc
hive.org/web/20190318044413/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/baudrillar
d/) from the original on 18 March 2019.
40. Aylesworth, Gary. "Postmodernism" (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/). In
Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 ed.).
41. Alan Hunt, "The Theory of Critical Legal Studies," Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 6,
No. 1 (1986): 1-45, esp. 1, 5. See [1] (https://web.archive.org/web/20151208023200/http://ojl
s.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/1/1.extract). DOI, 10.1093/ojls/6.1.1.
42. "Critical Legal Theory" (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/critical_legal_theory), Cornell Law
School> Retrieved 2017-08-10.
43. Ingram, David (2021). "What an Ethics of Discourse and Recognition Can Contribute to a
Critical Theory of Refugee Claim Adjudication: Reclaiming Epistemic Justice for Gender-
Based Asylum Seekers" (https://ecommons.luc.edu/context/philosophy_facpubs/article/1073/
viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf) (PDF). Migration, Recognition and Critical Theory. Studies in
Global Justice. Vol. 21. pp. 19–46. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-72732-1_2 (https://doi.org/10.100
7%2F978-3-030-72732-1_2). ISBN 978-3-030-72731-4.
44. Pulitano, Elvira (2013). "In liberty's shadow: The discourse of refugees and asylum seekers
in critical race theory and immigration law/Politics" (https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2012.7
63168). Identities. 20 (2): 172–189. doi:10.1080/1070289X.2012.763168 (https://doi.org/10.1
080%2F1070289X.2012.763168).
45. See, e.g., Hobden & Hobson 2002.
46. See, e.g., van der Tuin & Dolphijn 2012; Coole & Frost 2010; Connolly 2013.
47. Wallace-Wells, Benjamin (18 June 2021). "How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict
Over Critical Race Theory" (https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conse
rvative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory). The New Yorker. Retrieved
19 June 2021.
48. Meckler, Laura; Dawsey, Josh (21 June 2021). "Republicans, spurred by an unlikely figure,
see political promise in critical race theory" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/202
1/06/19/critical-race-theory-rufo-republicans/). The Washington Post. Vol. 144. ISSN 0190-
8286 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0190-8286). Retrieved 19 June 2021.
49. Iati, Marisa (29 May 2021). "What is critical race theory, and why do Republicans want to ban
it in schools?" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/05/29/critical-race-theory-b
ans-schools/). The Washington Post. "Rather than encouraging white people to feel guilty,
Thomas said critical race theorists aim to shift focus away from individual people's bad
actions and toward how systems uphold racial disparities."
50. Kahn, Chris (15 July 2021). "Many Americans embrace falsehoods about critical race theory"
(https://www.reuters.com/world/us/many-americans-embrace-falsehoods-about-critical-race-t
heory-2021-07-15/). Reuters. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
51. "Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed : Book Summary" (http://www.theeducationist.inf
o/paulo-freires-pedagogy-oppressed-book-summary/). The Educationist. 9 July 2014.
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200328154753/http://www.theeducationist.info/paul
o-freires-pedagogy-oppressed-book-summary) from the original on 28 March 2020.
Retrieved 4 June 2020.
52. For a history of the emergence of critical theory in the field of education, see Gottesman,
Isaac (2016). The Critical Turn in Education: From Marxist Critique to Postructuralist
Feminism to Critical Theories of Race. New York: Routledge.
53. See, e.g., Kołakowski, Leszek. [1976] 1979. Main Currents of Marxism 3. W.W. Norton &
Company. ISBN 0393329437. ch. 10.
54. Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Critical Criminology (http://bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.
pl?term=CRITICAL%20CRIMINOLOGY). Athabasca University and ICAAP. Retrieved on:
2011-10-30.
55. Meyer, Doug (March 2014). "Resisting Hate Crime Discourse: Queer and Intersectional
Challenges to Neoliberal Hate Crime Laws". Critical Criminology. 22 (1): 113–125.
doi:10.1007/s10612-013-9228-x (https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10612-013-9228-x).
S2CID 143546829 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:143546829).
56. Uggen, Christopher; Inderbitzin, Michelle (2010). "Public criminologies". Criminology &
Public Policy. 9 (4): 725–749. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9133.2010.00666.x (https://doi.org/10.111
1%2Fj.1745-9133.2010.00666.x). "Uggen, C. and Inderbitzin, M. (2010), Public
criminologies. Criminology & Public Policy, 9: 725-749. doi:10.1111/j.1745-
9133.2010.00666.x"
57. Jay, Martin (1996). The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the
Institute of Social Research, 1923–1950 (https://books.google.com/books?id=nwkzVdaaB2s
C&pg=PA41). University of California Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0520204232. Archived (https://
web.archive.org/web/20201028061218/https://books.google.com/books?id=nwkzVdaaB2sC
&pg=PA41) from the original on 28 October 2020. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
58. Corradetti, Claudio. "The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory (https://www.iep.utm.edu/frank
fur/#SH2a)". Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20180218090424/https://www.iep.utm.ed
u/frankfur/#SH2a) 18 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
59. Bohmann, Ulf; Sörensen, Paul (20 June 2022). "Exploring a Critical Theory of politics" (http
s://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/index.php/civitas/article/view/42204). Civitas - Revista de
Ciências Sociais. 22: e42204. doi:10.15448/1984-7289.2022.1.42204 (https://doi.org/10.154
48%2F1984-7289.2022.1.42204). ISSN 1984-7289 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1984-728
9). S2CID 249915438 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:249915438).
60. "Understanding Critical Theory" (https://www.simplypsychology.org/critical-theory.html). 3
November 2022. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
61. "9.8 PROBLEMS WITH CRITICAL THEORIES OF EDUCATION" (https://members.aect.org/
edtech/ed1/09/09-08.html). members.aect.org. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
62. Pardy, Bruce (24 June 2023). "How Canada's secular religion of cultural self-hate took hold"
(https://nationalpost.com/opinion/bruce-pardy-how-canadas-secular-religion-of-cultural-self-h
ate-took-hold). National Post.
63. Danisch, Robert (10 January 2023). "The humanities should teach about how to make a
better world, not just criticize the existing one" (https://theconversation.com/the-humanities-s
hould-teach-about-how-to-make-a-better-world-not-just-criticize-the-existing-one-190634).
The Conversation. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
64. Helmick, Kittie (22 October 2022). "Critical theory is dead" (https://thecritic.co.uk/critical-theor
y-is-dead/). The Critic. Retrieved 25 June 2023.

Works cited
Connolly, William E. (2013). "The 'New Materialism' and the Fragility of Things". Millennium:
Journal of International Studies. 41 (3): 399–412. doi:10.1177/0305829813486849 (https://do
i.org/10.1177%2F0305829813486849). ISSN 1477-9021 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/147
7-9021). S2CID 143725752 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:143725752).
Coole, Diana; Frost, Samantha, eds. (2010). New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and
Politics. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4753-8.
Hobden, Stephen; Hobson, John M., eds. (2002). Historical Sociology of International
Relations. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80870-5.
Lindlof, Thomas R.; Taylor, Bryan C. (2002). Qualitative Communication Research Methods
(https://archive.org/details/qualitativecommu00lind). SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-
0761924944.
Van der Tuin, Iris; Dolphijn, Rick (2012). New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies.
Ann Arbor, Michigan: Open Humanities Press. doi:10.3998/ohp.11515701.0001.001 (https://
doi.org/10.3998%2Fohp.11515701.0001.001). ISBN 978-1-60785-281-0.

Bibliography
"Problematizing Global Knowledge." Theory, Culture & Society 23(2–3). 2006. ISSN 0263-
2764 (https://www.worldcat.org/search?fq=x0:jrnl&q=n2:0263-2764).
Calhoun, Craig. 1995. Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of
Difference. Blackwell. ISBN 1557862885 – A survey of and introduction to the current state of
critical social theory.
Charmaz, K. 1995. "Between positivism and postmodernism: Implications for methods."
Studies in Symbolic Interaction 17:43–72.
Conquergood, D. 1991. "Rethinking ethnography: Towards a critical cultural politics (http://w
ww.csun.edu/~vcspc00g/301/RethinkingEthnog.pdf)." Communication Monographs
58(2):179–94. doi:10.1080/03637759109376222 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F036377591093
76222).
Corchia, Luca. 2010. La logica dei processi culturali. Jürgen Habermas tra filosofia e
sociologia (https://books.google.com/books?id=U56Sag72eSoC). Genova: Edizioni ECIG.
ISBN 978-8875441951.
Dahms, Harry, ed. 2008. No Social Science Without Critical Theory, (Current Perspectives in
Social Theory 25). Emerald/JAI.
Gandler, Stefan. 2009. Fragmentos de Frankfurt. Ensayos sobre la Teoría crítica. México:
21st Century Publishers/Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro. ISBN 978-6070300707.
 Geuss, Raymond. 1981. The Idea of a Critical Theory. Habermas and the Frankfurt School.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521284228.
Honneth, Axel. 2006. La société du mépris. Vers une nouvelle Théorie critique, La
Découverte. ISBN 978-2707147721.
Horkheimer, Max. 1982. Critical Theory Selected Essays. New York: Continuum Publishing.
Morgan, Marcia. 2012. Kierkegaard and Critical Theory (https://philpapers.org/rec/MORKA
C). New York: Lexington Books.
Rolling, James H. 2008. "Secular blasphemy: Utter(ed) transgressions against names and
fathers in the postmodern era (https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&cont
ext=tl)." Qualitative Inquiry 14(6):926–48. – An example of critical postmodern work.
Sim, Stuart, and Borin Van Loon. 2001. Introducing Critical Theory. ISBN 1840462647. – A
short introductory volume with illustrations.
Thomas, Jim. 1993. Doing Critical Ethnography. London: Sage. pp. 1–5 & 17–25.
Tracy, S. J. 2000. "Becoming a character for commerce: Emotion labor, self subordination
and discursive construction of identity in a total institution (https://www.researchgate.net/profil
e/Sarah_Tracy3/publication/34040485_Emotion_labor_and_correctional_officers_A_study_
of_emotion_norms_performances_and_unintended_consequences_in_a_total_institution/lin
ks/57ba215608aedfe0ec96ebc2.pdf)." Management Communication Quarterly 14(1):90–
128. – An example of critical qualitative research.
Willard, Charles Arthur. 1982. Argumentation and the Social Grounds of Knowledge (https://p
hilpapers.org/rec/WILAAT-22). University of Alabama Press.
— 1989. A Theory of Argumentation. University of Alabama Press.
— 1996. Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy
(https://books.google.com/books?id=OU75AafuhvcC). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chapter 9. Critical Theory Solomon, Robert C., ed. (2007). The Blackwell Guide to
Continental Philosophy (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/437147422). David L. Sherman.
Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1405143042. OCLC 437147422 (https://www.worldca
t.org/oclc/437147422).

External links
"The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory" (http://www.iep.utm.edu/frankfur). Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Gerhardt, Christina. "Frankfurt School". The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and
Protest. Ness, Immanuel (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2009. Blackwell Reference Online (htt
p://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode.html?id=g9781405184649_chunk_g97
81405184649586).
"Theory: Death Is Not the End" (https://nplusonemag.com/issue-2/the-intellectual-situation/d
eath-is-not-the-end/) N+1 magazine's short history of academic Critical Theory.
Critical Legal Thinking (http://www.criticallegalthinking.com/) A Critical Legal Studies
website which uses Critical Theory in an analysis of law and politics.
L. Corchia, Jürgen Habermas. A Bibliography: works and studies (1952–2013) (https://books.
google.com/books?id=-T14AQAAQBAJ), Pisa, Edizioni Il Campano – Arnus University
Books, 2013, 606 pages.
Sim, S.; Van Loon, B. (2009). Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide. Icon Books Ltd.

Archival collections
Guide to the Critical Theory Offprint Collection. (http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf
5q2nb391) Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, Cali Guide to
 the Critical Theory Institute Audio and Video Recordings, University of California, Irvine. (htt
p://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt5k403303) Special Collections and Archives, The
UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
University of California, Irvine, Critical Theory Institute Manuscript Materials. (http://www.oac.
cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt9x0nf6pd) Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine
Libraries, Irvine, California.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Critical_theory&oldid=1230630780"