Forum
The forum is a space to debate the questions and topics that characterize contemporary Critical Theory. In cooperation with the European Committee on Critical Theory, we annually present 11 theses that seek to start and facilitate a new discussion. Furthermore, the forum is a place to take part in discourses emerging from recent struggles and political developments. In the glossary we engage with controversies surrounding the basic concepts of contemporary social critique.
If you have any proposals or contributions, please contact philohsc@hu-berlin.de
New debate
What Approach to Social Totality Does a Critical Theory Need Today?
Is there still a need for a comprehensive social theory today that clarifies the interrelation and interaction of the various social spheres? Often enough, social theoretical designs have tried to accomplish this task by postulating clear hierarchies of social phenomena and derivations between them. This strategy made social theory unattractive to many of the new social movements. Today, however, the question is what connects the inheritors of these movements or at least allows us to deal with the conflicts between them on a theoretical level. If the multiple concrete experiences of exploitation, discrimination, exclusion and so on are not to be reduced to an abstract as well as politically ineffective denominator such as “suffering” or “injustice”, must not then the hour of theories, which promise to reconstruct the coherence of social relations, strike again?