Critical social theory constitutes an effort to rethink and reform Marxist social criticism; it characteristically rejects mainstream political and intellectual views, criticizes capitalism, promotes human liberation, and consequently attempts to...

Critical theory, in sociology and philosophy, is shorthand for critical theory of society or critical social theory, a label used by the Frankfurt School, i.e., members of the Institute for Social Research of the University of Frankfurt, their...

Wiggershaus, Rolf. Translated by Michael Robertson. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994. ix + 787 pp. Cloth, $60.00; paper, $25.00--This is above all a documentary book, written in monumental proportions. Not only the "history," but also the "theories" and the "political significance" of the Frankfurt School...

By Richard Wolin. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. Pp. xxv + 256. $35.00. Richard Wolin's new book, The Terms of Cultural Criticism: The Frankfurt School, Existentialism, Poststructuralism, features on its cover Man Ray's 1930 "Portrait Imaginaire de D.A.F. de Sade." Wolin notes...

When someone who was once at the helm of MoMA promises to confront our uncertainties about the last five decades of nonrepresentational art, it’s worth taking notice. But despite the clear and perceptive intelligence of author Kirk Varnedoe (1946-2003), Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art Since...

When someone who was once at the helm of MoMA promises to confront our uncertainties about the last five decades of nonrepresentational art, it’s worth taking notice. But despite the clear and perceptive intelligence of author Kirk Varnedoe (1946-2003), Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art Since...