Abstract
North American Critical Theory after Postmodernism explores the emergence of a generation of critical theorists whose lives and scholarship unfolded in the midst of what has been called ‘the postmodern turn.’ I locate this generation in the 1970s and 1980s in the work of Ben Agger, Andrew Arato, Robert J. Antonio, Seyla Benhabib, Craig Calhoun, Nancy Fraser, Douglas Kellner, and Timothy W. Luke. While certainly not a comprehensive list of the North American critical theorists who belong to this tradition, each of these authors offers a contemporary statement on critical theory, builds on the work of Western Marxism and the Frankfurt School, and engages sagaciously with postmodernism1 without proposing a radical break from the tradition of emancipatory telos and the practice of immanent critique. This unique engagement results for each author in an evolving and distinctly political perspective on varying contemporary themes.
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Notes
Peter Beilharz, introduction to Postwar American Critical Thought (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006), xxxi.
Philip Wexler, preface to Critical Theory Now (New York: Falmer Press, 1991), viii.
Göran Therborn, From Marxism to Post-Marxism? (London and New York: Verso, 2008).
Nancy Fraser, ‘A Future for Marxism,’ New Politics 6, 4 (1998): 95.
Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (New York: Guilford Press, 1991), 201.
Ben Agger, ‘Is Wright Wrong (or Should Burawoy be Buried)?: Reflections on the Crisis of the “Crisis of Marxism,”’ Berkeley Journal of Sociology XXXIV (1989d): 187.
Robert J. Antonio, ‘Immanent critique as the Core of Critical Theory: Its Origins and Developments in Hegel, Marx, and Contemporary Thought,’ British Journal of Sociology 32, 3 (1981): 330–1.
G. Genosko, S. Gandesha and K. Marcellus, ‘A Crucible of Critical Interdisciplinarity: The Toronto Telos Group,’ Topia: A Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 8 (Fall 2002): 2–3.
Timothy W. Luke, ‘Toward a North American Critical Theory,’ Telos 101 (Fall 1994a): 102–3.
Andrew Arato, Jose Casanova, Jean Cohen, and Joel Whitebook, Letter dated June 1, 1987. Telos Newsletter October 19 (1987): 8.
Andrew Arato, ‘Understanding Bureaucratic Centralism,’ Telos 35 (Spring 1978): 73.
Andrew Arato, Civil Society, Constitution, and Legitimacy (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000).
Robert J. Antonio, ‘The Origin, Development, and Contemporary Status of Critical Theory,’ Sociological Quarterly 24, 3 (1983): 345.
Seyla Benhabib, ‘Modernity and the Aporias of Critical Theory,’ Telos 47 (Fall 1981): 59.
Ben Agger, Gender, Culture, Power: Toward a Feminist Postmodern Critical Theory (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1993), 26.
Craig Calhoun, Critical Social Theory: Culture, History and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1995), 35.
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© 2012 Patricia Mooney Nickel
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Nickel, P.M. (2012). North American Critical Theory after Postmodernism. In: Nickel, P.M. (eds) North American Critical Theory After Postmodernism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137262868_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137262868_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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