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Apr 25, 2024
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RLST189P PO - Critical TheoryWhen Offered: Last offered spring 2020.
Instructor(s): Staff
Credit: 1
Critical Theory seeks ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them,’ according to Max Horkheimer, one of the leading figures of the Frankfurt School. In this course we will discuss: the failure of the revolutionary movement (Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg) and the rise of totalitarianism that provide the historical context for Critical Theory’s search for new possibilities of emancipation; Ernst Bloch’s study of utopian aspirations in art and religion; the major philosophical and literary critical works of figures associated with the Frankfurt School (Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin); the plays of Bertolt Brecht; the exiled Frankfurt School’s influence in the United States (Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Cornell West, Susan Buck-Morss), with emphasis on its critique of the culture industry, i.e., Hollywood, and the role of media in mass society; and recent developments in postmodern and postsecular critical social theory (Jurgen Habermas, Gillian Rose, Slavoj Zizek, Byung-Chul Han).
Satisfies the following General Education Requirement(s), subject to conditions explained in the Degree Requirements section of this Catalog:
Area 3
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