Globalizing Critical Theory

The collection of articles, edited and introduced by Max Pensky, is an important document of the intellectual actuality of Critical Theory today. This book explains the reason why Critical Theory today has been developed into an important philosophical and political theory which is critically reflecting on the process of globalization and supports the constitution of a structure of cosmopolitan democratic institutions, of a worldwide democratic law, and of a global public sphere. -- Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Goethe-University, Frankfurt In this volume Max Pensky has assembled the best in the field to address the phenomenon of globalization. Beginning with Habermas's now famous text on the global anti-war movement, Globalizing Critical Theory provides a sweeping vision of globalization in its various forms. For those interested in a critical examination of the global aspects of war, the public sphere, race and memoryas well as science, technology and aestheticsthis is required reading. -- David Rasmussen, Ph.D., Boston College The 11 essays on the "global public sphere" and other related topics are timelySumming up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE * This is a welcome and innovative book. * Perspectives on Politics * It represents an engaged and critical discussion of some various aspects of the much-discussed phenomenon of globalization, without exhausting the resourcefulness of the perspectives afforded by Critical Theory. * Philosophy in Review, October 2006 * The Critical Social Theory of the Frankfurt School was formulated to grasp the transition from nineteenth-century laissez-faire capitalism to early 20th century 'state-capitalism' or 'organized capitalism.' Today we are experiencing another epochal shift from Fordism to post-Fordism, from national economies to neo-liberal globalization. The powerful essays in this volume seek to come to terms with this new shift in its political and socio-cultural ramifications. A critical theory of globalization involves globalizing and transforming critical theory itself. -- Seyla Benhabib

Max Pensky is associate professor of philosophy at Binghamton University and a prominent translator of Habermas.

Chapter 1 Globalizing Theory, Theorizing Globalization: Introduction Part 2 Part I: Globalization and Hegemony: Two Interventions Chapter 3 Interpreting the Fall of a Monument Chapter 4 February 15; or, What Binds Europeans Together: A Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in Core Europe Part 5 Part II: The Global Public Sphere Chapter 6 Transnationalizing the Public Sphere Chapter 7 Toward a Critical Theory of Globalization: Democratic Practice and Multiperspectival Inquiry Chapter 8 Democratic Institutions and Cosmopolitan Solidarity Chapter 9 The Transnational University and the Global Public Sphere Part 10 Part III: Race, Memory, Forgetting Chapter 11 Beyond Eurocentrism: The Frankfurt School and Whiteness Theory Chapter 12 Vergangenheitsbewltigung in the United States: On the Politics of the Memory of Slavery Chapter 13 Resistance to Memory: The Uses and Abuses of Public Forgetting Part 14 Part IV: Globalizing Visions: Science, Technology, Aesthetics Chapter 15 Globalizing Critical Theory of Science Chapter 16 In the Stocking-Steps of Walter Benjamin: Critical Theory, Television, and the Global Imagination Chapter 17 Adorno; or, The End of Aesthetics Chapter 18 Peripheral Glances: Adorno's Aesthetic Theory in Brazil