The Challenge of Tradition emphasizes the tension between Theodor Adorno's critique of tradition as being incompatible with capitalist modernity and his understanding of the need for maintaining aesthetic and cultural connections with the past. Placing the concept of tradition in the larger context of late modernity, Peter Uwe Hohendahl argues that Adorno redeems tradition even as he critiques it.Beginning his analysis with Adorno's 1966 e...

Since his death, the writings of Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) have been debated, cited, and adopted by political and legal thinkers on both the left and right with increasing frequency, though not without controversy given Schmitt's unwavering support for National Socialism before and during World War II. In Perilous Futures, Peter Uwe Hohendahl calls for critical scrutiny of Schmitt's later writings, the work in which Schmitt wrestles with concerns that retain presen...

A discussion of Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory is bound to look significantly different today than it would have looked when the book was first published in 1970, or when it first appeared in English translation in the 1980s. In The Fleeting Promise of Art, Peter Uwe Hohendahl reexamines Aesthetic Theory along with Adorno's other writings on aesthetics in light of the unexpected return of the aesthetic to today's cultural debates.Is Adorno's aesthetic theory sti...

Building a National Literature boldly takes issue with traditional literary criticism for its failure to explain how literature as a body is created and shaped by institutional forces. Peter Uwe Hohendahl approaches literary history by focusing on the material and ideological structures that determine the canonical status of writers and works. He examines important elements in the making of a national literature, including the political and litera...

Across a spectrum of academic disciplines, the topic of globalization is at the forefront of contemporary efforts to understand a dynamically changing world society. How might critical social theory respond creatively to the challenge of thinking and theorizing globalization in its full complexity? Globalizing Critical Theory collects essays by scholars at the forefront of Critical Theory as they confront this timely topic. This book offers readers a chance to see contemporary Cri...

Reappraisals is a provocative account of the development of modern critical theory in Germany and the United States. Focusing on the period since World War II, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores key debates on the function of critical theory, illuminating the diverse positions and alliances among the participants. Bringing together six essays, as well as new introductory and concluding chapters, Hohendahl interprets and subjects to critical scrutiny man...

German radicals of the 1960s announced the death of literature. For them, literature both past and present, as well as conventional discussions of literary issues, had lost its meaning. In The Institution of Criticism, Peter Uwe Hohendahl explores the implications of this crisis from a Marxist perspective and attempts to define the tasks and responsibilities of criticism in advanced capitalist societies. Hohendahl takes a close look at the social history of litera...