Reappraisals - by Peter Uwe Hohendahl (Paperback)

About the Book

Reappraisals is a provocative account of the development of modern critical theory in Germany and the United States. Focusing on the period since World War II, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores key debates on the function of critical theory.

Book Synopsis

Reappraisals is a provocative account of the development of modern critical theory in Germany and the United States. Focusing on the period since World War II, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores key debates on the function of critical theory, illuminating the diverse positions and alliances among the participants. Bringing together six essays, as well as new introductory and concluding chapters, Hohendahl interprets and subjects to critical scrutiny many of the central ideas of the Frankfurt School. He first maps the trajectory of neomarxist criticism in Germany to the 1980s. Individual chapters then focus on the work of Georg Lukacs, Theodor W. Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas, and on such issues as the politicization of German criticism after 1965 under the influence of the Frankfurt School.

Review Quotes

At the center of Reappraisals is the political question of where to locate critical agency in (post)modern societies. Hohendahl thus identifies the crucial question that links the work of the Frankfurt School to contemporary debates about postmodernity. His collection of essays spans the entire history of critical theory, displaying its interactions with rival paradigms of cultural politics--from the influence of Lukacs (as inventor of Western Marxism) to postmodernism and New Historicism.

About the Author

Peter Uwe Hohendahl is Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. He is an editor of the series Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought, which is copublished by Cornell University Press and the Cornell University Library. He is the author most recently of The Fleeting Promise of Art: Adorno's Aesthetic Theory Revisited, also from Cornell.