CTWG

Critical Theory Working Group

A website for collective self-clarification without consolation

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Marxist Working Week Geraberg 1923

Group photo

Standing from left to right: Hede Massing, Friedrich Pollock, Eduard Ludwig Alexander, Konstantin Zetkin, Georg Lukács, Julian Gumperz, Richard Sorge, Karl Alexander (child), Felix Weil, unknown; sitting: Karl August Wittfogel, Rose Wittfogel, unknown, Christiane Sorge, Karl Korsch, Hedda Korsch, Käthe Weil, Margarete Lissauer, Bela Fogarasi, Gertrud Alexander

Welcome to the Critical Theory Working Group (CTWG) website. In this website, you will find information about our reading groups, publications, and other resources. For the latest news and updates, please check the announcements below. Similarly, for our latest publications, please check the latest blog posts. For our journal, Margin Notes, please check the projects page.

Brief Motivation

The transmission – by reconstruction, criticism, and development – of early (Marxian) critical social theory in the first half of the twentieth century, with a focus on the constellation of thinkers known as, or associated with, “The Frankfurt School”. In the short term, the purpose of this group is to offer open reading groups and free resources to anyone interested in dedicated study of early critical theory, regardless of background or education. In the long term, the modest goal of this group is to provoke and cultivate the critical attitude essential for the immodest project of critical theory: the criticism and abolition of capitalist society.

The transmission of the critical theory in its strictest possible form is, of course, a condition of its historical success. But the transmission will not take place via solidly established practice and fixed ways of acting but via concern for social transformation. Such a concern will necessarily be aroused ever anew by prevailing injustice, but it must be shaped and guided by the theory itself and in turn react upon the theory. The circle of transmitters of this tradition is neither limited nor renewed by organic or sociological laws. It is constituted and maintained not by biological or testamentary inheritance, but by a knowledge which brings its own obligations with it. And even this knowledge guarantees only a contemporary, not a future community of transmitters. The theory may be stamped with the approval of every logical criterion, but to the end of the age it will lack the seal of approval which victory brings. Until then, too, the struggle will continue to grasp it aright and to apply it. – Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937)

For the current editorial board, see people.

news

Mar 10, 2025 Spring 2025 Reading Group Announcement
Oct 26, 2024 Update on Working Group Activities and Plans (Fall 2024)
Aug 16, 2024 We have moved our blog to a new domain. Welcome to the new home of the Critical Theory Working Group blog!
Jun 04, 2024 Report on Working Group Activities (06/04/2024)
Apr 20, 2024 Summer 2024 Reading Group: The Fight for the Dialectic of Enlightenment

latest posts