The Internationalization of Critical Theory

Frankfurt School Receptions in Europe, the Americas and East Asia

John Abromeit, Rúrion Melo, Luiz Repa

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350498990
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Critical Theory

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

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Latin America
• Chapter 1: The Reception of Critical Theory in Brazil: From Dictatorship to Redemocratization
• Chapter 2: Frankfurt’s Critical Theory in Chile: Process and Generations: The Reception of the First Generation from the 1960s Until Today
• Chapter 3: Translation, Exception: Walter Benjamin in Argentina
• Chapter 4: Critical Theory on Mexican Ground
• Part II: East Asia
• Chapter 5: The Politics of Critical Theory: The Translation of the Frankfurt School in South Korea
• Chapter 6: The Reception of the Frankfurt School in China from 1978 to the Present
• Chapter 7: The Reception and Development of Frankfurt Critical Theory in Japan
• Part III: Europe
• Chapter 8: Critical Theory in Spain: A Reception in the Shadow of Habermas
• Chapter 9: The Paths of Marcuse and Adorno in France
• Chapter 10: Critical Theory in Italy, 1954–2000
• Chapter 11: Productive Tensions: The Development of Feminist Critical Theory in Germany
• Chapter 12: From Inspiring Ally to Ideological Enemy . . . and Back Again?! : Twists and Turns in the Reception of Critical Theory in State-Socialist Czechoslovakia 1956–89 . . . and After
• Chapter 13: Found in Translation: On the Infrastructure of the Transfer of Ideas Between Critical Theory in Yugoslavia and Wes Germany
• Chapter 14: Belated Reception: Critical Theory in Greece from the Mid-1970s to the Present
• Part IV: The United States
• Chapter 15: From Western Marxism and Frankfurt School Critical Theory to Right-Wing Populism: The History of the Journal Telos, 1968—95
• Chapter 16: Interview with Martin Jay on the Reception of Critical Theory in the United States, 1960s–Present
• Notes
• Contributors
• Index