The Internationalization of Critical Theory: Frankfurt School Receptions in Europe, the Americas and East Asia

From Walter Benjamin in Argentina to Theodor Adorno in Japan, this collection brings together leading scholars of Critical Theory to examine the impact of the Frankfurt School across global histories of the 20th century. Featuring essays on Critical Theory's role in Brazil during dictatorship and redemocratization; the influence of Herbert Marcuse in Pinochet's Chile; the politics of Critical Theory in South Korea and intellectual relationships across Yugoslavia, Germany and the United States, the chapters in this volume consider how social, political, historical and intellectual conditions shaped local receptions of the Frankfurt School, and how the School's key thinkers in turn helped to transform these conditions. Guided by Max Horkheimer's seminal distinction between critical and traditional theory, in which Critical Theory is distinguished by its self-reflexivity and awareness of its location within a larger social totality, The Internationalization of Critical Theory offers a groundbreaking reflection on Critical Theory at an international scale. Tracing the legacy of the Frankfurt School across Latin America, East Asia, Europe and North America, this volume offers new insights into the intellectual histories of both Critical Theory and global politics.

Table of Contents:
Editors' Introduction, John Abromeit, Rúrion Melo, and Luiz Repa Part One: Latin America 1. The Reception of Critical Theory in Brazil: From Dictatorship to Redemocratization, Luiz Repa and Rurion Melo 2. Frankfurt's Critical Theory in Chile: Process and Generations, Mauro Basaure 3. Translation, Exception: Walter Benjamin in Argentina, Luis Ignacio García 4. Critical Theory on Mexican Ground, Lissette Silva Part Two: East Asia 5. The Politics of Critical Theory: The Translation of the Frankfurt School in South Korea, Jaeho Kang 6. The Reception of the Frankfurt School in China from 1978 to the Present, Li Qiankun 7. The Reception and Development of Frankfurt Critical Theory in Japan, Masao Higurashi Part Three: Europe 8. Critical Theory in Spain: A Reception in the Shadow of Habermas, José M. Romero 9. The Paths of Marcuse and Adorno in France, Isabelle Aubert 10. Critical Theory in Italy, 1954-2000, Stefano Petrucciani 11. Productive Tensions: The Development of Feminist Critical Theory in Germany, Karin Stögner 12. From Inspiring Ally to Ideological Enemy … and Back Again?: Twists and Turns in the Reception of Critical Theory in State Socialist Czechoslovakia 1956–1989 … and after, Jiri Ruzicka 13. Found in Translation: On the Infrastructure of the Transfer of Ideas Between Critical Theory in Yugoslavia and West Germany, Nenad Stefanov 14. Belated Reception: Critical Theory in Greece from the Mid-1970s to the Present, Konstantinos Kavoulakos Part Four: The United States 15. From Western Marxism and Frankfurt School Critical Theory to Right-Wing Populism: The Intellectual and Political Trajectory of the Journal Telos, 1968 – 1995, John Abromeit 16. Interview with Martin Jay on the Reception of the Frankfurt School in the United States, Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
John Abromeit is Associate Professor in the Department of History at SUNY, Buffalo State, USA. Luiz Repa is Professor of Philosophy at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Rúrion Melo is Professor of Political Science at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Review :
This collection of essays fills a huge gap in Frankfurt School scholarship. Focusing on the reception of the Frankfurt School outside of Germany, it provides a long-awaited supplement to Martin Jay's path-breaking study of the School's early history, appropriately ending with Jay's own retrospective glance backward at the School's emergence as a global phenomenon. Given the impact that the Frankfurt School has had on diverse national and regional audiences, the contributors to this volume emphatically testify to the multifaceted international and intersectional power of this intellectual tradition. The Internationalization of Critical Theory is sure to prove to be indispensable reading for all serious students of Critical Theory. Demonstrating the wrong-headedness of the charge of narrow and irredeemable Eurocentrism increasingly levelled at the Frankfurt School, this extraordinary volume is comprised of scrupulously researched essays on its reception under strikingly divergent social, economic, cultural and political conditions in societies as complex and diverse as Mexico, Brazil, Chile Argentina, South Korea, Japan and China as well as several European countries. It concludes with a scintillating interview conducted by John Abromeit with Martin Jay––the foremost intellectual historian of our age who, amongst other things, has made countless unrivalled contributions to our understanding of the history of the Frankfurt School.