PHIL 321
Introduction to Critical Theory: The Enlightenment and Its Critics Spring 2023
Division II Writing Skills Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed WGSS 322
This is not the current course catalog

We often associate modern faith in the prospects of universal human dignity, rational autonomy, the rights of man, individual liberty, democracy, open scientific inquiry and social and political progress with the Enlightenment . How can we reconcile this faith with the persistence of domination today? Critical theory aims not merely to understand the “struggles and wishes of the age” as Marx one described it, but with emancipation from domination. Understood in this way, critical theory is identified closely with the intellectual tradition of the Frankfurt School. In this tutorial, will read works in critical theory from the 18th century to the present, some from the Frankfurt tradition, and some not. We will focus on particular topics, examples of which are the following: normative critique, capitalism, authoritarianism, mass culture, enlightenment and reason, progress, violence, the domination of nature, white supremacy, patriarchy and colonialism.