Previous Sessions and Work

For the most recent updates on working group activities, check out the posts on our home page and our spring 2024 report here.

Past CTWG Reading Group Sessions (2023-2024)

The Fight for the Dialectic of Enlightenment (Summer 2024): Link to the full schedule and reading list here.

Recordings (uploaded as they are edited):

• June 1st, “Prefaces” to DoE. (James/Crane) Recorded session here
• June 8th, “Concept of Enlightenment.” (James/Crane) Recorded session here
• June 15th, “Excursus I: Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment.” (Mac Parker) Recorded session here
• June 22nd, “Excursus II: Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality” (Esther Planas Balduz) Recorded session here
• June 29th, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” (Zachary Loeffler) Recorded session here
• July 6th, “Elements of Anti-Semitism: Limits of Enlightenment” (J.E. Morain)
• July 13th, “Notes and Sketches” (Group Presentation)

The Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung: Organon of Early Critical Theory (Fall/Winter 2023) Link to the full schedule and reading list here

Recordings:

• Discussion 1 – 11/25/23: On Marcuse’s “Concept of Essence” (1936) with Mac Parker
• Discussion 2 – 12/2/24: On Horkheimer’s “A New Concept of Ideology?” (1930) with Sam Thomas
• Discussion 3 – 12/9/2024: Horkheimer’s Materialism Essays (1933) with Esther Planas Balduz
• Discussion 4 – 12/16/2024: Adorno’s “In Search of Wagner” with Zachary Loeffler

Preliminary Sessions (Hosted by James/Crane) (Spring-Fall 2023)

Self-Criticism and Historical Materialism (Early Fall 2023): Returning to Lukacs (“The Changing Function of Historical Materialism” (1919); “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919); “Moses Hess and the Problems of Idealist Dialectics” (1926)) and Korsch (“Marxism and Philosophy” (1923); “Introduction to the Critique of the Gotha Program” (1922); “The Marxism of the First International” (1924)) for three weeks, focusing on how each argues – by reference to the concepts of totality and the unity of theory and practice – that Marxism is self-critical or it is nothing. We conclude with two weeks discussing the heterodox historical materialisms of Ernst Bloch (The Spirit of Utopia (1923): “Karl Marx, Death, and the Apocalypse”) and Walter Benjamin (“Author as Producer” (1934); “Eduard Fuchs: Collector and Historian” (1937)). Link to the collection of recordings for this session on our Patreon here.

Horkheimer’s Early (pre-40s) Historical Criticism (Late Summer 2023) Focusing on Horkheimer’s work in the 1930’s: “The Present Situation” (1931), “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937) and its “Postscript” (1937) (collected here, in Critical Theory), Marcuse’s reply “Philosophy and Critical Theory” (1937) (collected here, in Negations), and Horkheimer’s later reflection “The Social Function of Philosophy” (1939) (also collected in Critical Theory, link above). Our focus was on defining the concept of critical theory that Horkheimer develops in his writings in the 30’s – namely, Horkheimer’s argument that critical theory must be an extension of Marx’s critique of political economy into a comprehensive social theory. Rather than providing just another scientific paradigm for the explanation of social history, critical theory begins as a theory of the failure of modern social theories (whether speculative-metaphysical or empirical-scientific) to provide such a comprehensive social theory. (This is only Horkheimer’s point of departure. The core of his 30’s concept of critical theory is a careful combination of historical criticism and materialist logic.) Link to the collection of recordings for this session on our Patreon here.

Method and Science (1919-1931) in Marxian Social Criticism (Early Spring 2023). Focusing on Lukacs’ “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919), Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy (1923), and Horkheimer’s “The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research” (1931). Our focus was on the theoretical practice of early, Marxian critical theory – the problem of Marxist ‘method’ after the critique of methodological formalism (Lukacs), the problem of ‘vulgar’ Marxism that pretends to the status of non-partisan social science (Korsch), and the interpenetration of social philosophy and empirical social science required by any critical theory of capitalist society (Horkheimer). Link to the collection of recordings for this session on our Patreon here.