Suchergebnisse

New York transit : an invitation to Columbia University -- Failure and the mythologies of exile : the Frankfurt school's years at Columbia University -- John Dewey's pit bull : Sidney Hook and the confrontation between pragmatism and critical theory -- Crosstown traffic : the New York intellectuals encounter critical theory -- The Atlantic divide : building bridges between Anglo-American empiricism and continental social theory -- Assimilation and acceptance : studies in prejudice -- Specters of Marx : the Frankfurt school in the era of the new left -- Marcuse's mentors : the American counterculture and the guru of the new left -- Conclusion: The Frankfurt school's American legacy

The Frankfurt School's first years on Morningside Heights progressed very smoothly. Based on the group's activities and accomplishments, it is clear that its members had not misrepresented themselves to Columbia's sociologists and administrators. The emphasis that had been placed on scientific social research had not been an empty marketing scheme. Members of the Institute for Social Research were throughout the 1930s. This was never more true than during the first five years on Morningside Heights. Although members of the Horkheimer Circle later played up stories of their anonymity and isolation at Columbia, evidence that suggests that such claims were greatly exaggerated. heavily engaged in social research

Oddly enough, the Frankfurt School's relationship to Columbia Universityhas been somewhat neglected by its many historians. It is nothard to understand why the Horkheimer circle would have desiredto settle at Columbia, but it is peculiar that the Frankfurt Schoolwould have received an invitation from Columbia. After all, whywould Columbia University's conservative president, Nicholas MurrayButler, and its sociology department extend an invitation to agroup of predominantly German-speaking social philosophers withstrong links to the Marxian left?

To introduce an archival protocol of a 'Debate about methods in the social sciences, especially the conception of social science method represented by the Institute', held on 17 January 1941 at the Institute of Social Research in New York, the article focuses on certain conflicts in substance and terms of discourse among members of the Institute, with special emphasis on Franz Neumann's distinctive approaches, notwithstanding his professed loyalty to Max Horkheimer's theory. These are seen to arise not only from Neumann's assignment as bargaining agent for the Institute and his distinctive relations with American colleagues, but also from their different orientations to the conflicted legacies of Weimar.

"Franz L. Neumann was a twentieth-century political thinker compelled to address central issues of democratic political understanding that have unexpectedly returned to prominence in recent years. Above all, there are patterns of threat to the convergence of pluralist social formations and adaptive constitutional orders that appeared securely established in the predominant array of states, notably the rise of authoritarian political leaders able to secure recognition from constituencies compounded of disillusioned publics and interested centers of power"--