Antisemitism is on the rise and critical theory is in the news. Can we learn something by going to the origins of critical theory, developed in Frankfurt, Germany exactly in response to the conditions that birthed Nazi Germany? Please join Dr. Martin Shuster, Professor of Philosophy and the Isaac Swift Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, for a talk and cocktail hour focused on the origins of critical theory in the work of the so-called Frankfurt School.
The event also serves to mark the remarkable acquisition by Atkins library of a founding text of critical theory, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno’s Philosophical Fragments (1944), a rare book of which only 300 copies exist, but which later was reworked to become their pathbreaking and hugely influential text, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). This is the first acquisition of a new collecting area for rare books: Great Books in Jewish Thought, supported by a fund endowed by library benefactor Alice Tate.
Thursday, October 12
J. Murrey Atkins Library
- 5 p.m. Presentation of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno’s Philosophical Fragments (1944). Special Collections, 10th floor
- 6 p.m. Join Dr. Martin Shuster, Professor of Philosophy and the Isaac Swift Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, for a talk and cocktail hour. Halton Reading Room, first floor
Dr. Martin Shuster is Professor of Philosophy and the Isaac Swift Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies. In addition to ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion, he specializes in critical theory, especially the Frankfurt School. His most recent book, in press with Routledge, is Critical Theory: The Basics.