Syllabus: The Frankfurt School in New York City
Professor Claudia Leeb
Roanoke College
Office location: West Hall 121
Office phone: 540-375-5256
Office hours: Tuesdays, 1:00pm-3:00pm
Course Description:
In the early twentieth century, a group of intellectuals broadly known as the Frankfurt School sought to move beyond standard approaches in social analysis to investigate the unique challenges posed by capitalism, modern bureaucracy, and mass politics. Against the backdrop of Nazism, Stalinism and monopoly capitalism, the Frankfurt School asked two questions: How did we get here? and Where does emancipation lie? Influenced by Hegel, Marx, Weber, Nietzsche and Freud, they drew from a wide array of intellectual disciplines and theoretical approaches in an effort to diagnose the pathological world of modernity.
The Frankfurt School played a central role in the intellectual migration to the United States. Fleeing Nazi oppression, the Institute and many of its affiliated scholars moved to Columbia University in 1934 and remained there until 1950. The Frankfurt School had a major impact not only at Columbia University, but also in the wider world of New York intellectuals and the New Left. Moreover, the years in America had an impact on the Frankfurt critics themselves. It is here that the major works of the early Frankfurt School, such as the Dialectic of the Enlightenment, were composed.
This course has two parts: the first part consists of an in-depth introduction to the works of the Frankfurt School through the reading the works of Georg Lukacs, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas, among others. During the second part of the course, we will follow the footsteps of the Frankfurt School thinkers in New York City, engaging with contemporary intellectuals whose primary research is the Frankfurt School, both at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. Ideally, students will take away from this course not only a deep understanding of the philosophical and theoretical roots of critical theory, but also a more refined awareness of the Frankfurt School’s impact on American intellectual life in general, and New York City’s in particular.
Reading List:
Leeb, Claudia. “Contesting Hierarchical Oppositions: The Dialectics of Adorno and Lacan.” In New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Ed. Alfred J. Drake. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 (168-192).
Wheatland, Thomas. The Frankfurt School in Exile. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Arato, Andrew and Eike Gebhardt (eds.) The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1982. (FSR)
Kellner, Douglas MacKay and Stephen Eric Bronner. Critical Theory and Society: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 1989. (CTS)
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Ed. G.S. Noerr, trans. E. Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory.” (E-Reserve)
Lukacs, Georg. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1972.
Habermas, Jurgen. The Structual Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. New York: Schocken, 1969.
Bronner, S. Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Recommended Readings:
Jay, Martin. The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research 1923-1950. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Wiggerhaus, Rolf. The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories and Political Significance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.
Learning Outcomes:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
(1) formulate and evaluate arguments about critical theory positions,
(2) write a paper with a clear thesis, cogent argumentation, effective organization, and a minimum of sentence-level errors,
(3) understand and articulate central concepts developed by critical theory thinkers,
(4) critically evaluate these concepts
(5) Finally, the most important learning outcome for this course is the exposure to places and culture that impacted, and were impacted by the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. They will be exposed to a sophisticated city and will have the opportunity to learn how to perceive political philosophy in new and different ways.
I. Pre-Departure Itinerary and Expectations
Shortly after the spring semester begins and I have a firm list of participants, I aim to activate a Blackboard page for the class so I can send a welcome email and alert students to the upcoming course schedule. I will also post a syllabus and other documents in advance. Students are expected to read these course documents prior to our first meeting.
II. Organizational Meeting (March)
The first meeting should last between one- and one-and-a-half hours and provide general travel information (as listed in IL pre-trip guidelines), hard copies of the syllabus and itinerary, and introduce the Frankfurt School.
A.On-Campus Meetings
Class day 1 - Class day 10, see syllabus below
B. New York City Itinerary and Expectations
I am planning for the students to engage in an in-depth reading of the texts prior to our departure for New York. Most of the students work during the travel will be interactive, experiencing the places they have been studying, writing about their experiences, participating in lectures, and leading and participating in discussions at the end of most days. The following is a tentative itinerary that lists what I hope to do while in New York City. In terms of budget, I am aiming for no more than $1,500. I intend to find accommodation for the students in the East Village, one of New York City’s intellectual and artistic centers, see itinerary below.
Course Schedule:
Monday, May 14, Foundations
Lukacs. ‘Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat’ in History and Class Consciousness, pp. 83-222.
Bronner. ‘Philosophical Anticipations: A Commentary on the Reification Essay of Georg Lukacs’ in
Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists.
Tuesday, May 15, Economy and Politics
Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory.” (E-Reserve)
Horkheimer, M. “Authoritarian State.” FSR
Wednesday, May 16, Psychoanalysis and Politics
Fromm, E. “Politics and psychoanalysis.” CTS
Adorno, T. “Introduction to Authoritarian Personality.” CTS
Thursday, May 17, Art and Politics
Benjamin, W. “Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations.
Adorno, T. “On the Fetish Character in Music and Regression in Listening.” FSR
Friday, May 18, Modernity and the Pathologies of Reason I
Adorno, T. and Mark Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. (selections)
Leeb, Claudia. “Contesting Hierarchical Oppositions: The Dialectics of Adorno and Lacan.” In New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Ed. Alfred J. Drake. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 (168-192).
Monday, May 21, Modernity and the Pathologies of Reason II
Adorno, T. and Mark Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. (selections)
Tuesday, May 22, Habermas and the Public Sphere I
Habermas, Jurgen. The Structual Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.
Wednesday, May 23, Habermas and the Public Sphere II
Habermas, Jurgen. The Structual Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.
Thursday, May 24, The Frankfurt School in New York I
Wheatland, Thomas. The Frankfurt School in Exile. (selections)
Friday, May 25, The Frankfurt School in New York II
Wheatland, Thomas. The Frankfurt School in Exile. (selections)
Itinerary:
1. Saturday, May 26
Fly from Roanoke to New York City. Arrive in New York City and take a tour of the East Village. Explore Thompson Square Park, where the subculture movement originated.
2.Sunday, May 27
Visit Columbia University, its library and the original buildings that housed the Frankfurt School. Lecture on the legacy of the Frankfurt School in New York City.
3. Monday, May 28
Visit the New School for Social Research. Participate in a political philosophy lecture to show the contemporary relevance of critical theory in scholarship.
4.Tuesday, May 29
Visit PS 1, museum of contemporary art in Long Island City. Here the aim is to understand the connection between critical theory and the critical art movement in New York. Lecture on the meaning of art and political subversion of the Frankfurt School.
5. Wednesday, May 30
Free day for students to explore New York City.
Wednesday evening, attend a classical concert at the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.
6. Thursday, May 31
Visit Blue Note, a Jazz club in New York City, and draw connections between jazz and the early Frankfurt School. Lecture on the critiques of the Frankfurt School’s relationship with jazz.
7. Friday, June 1
Return to Roanoke