The Future of Critical Theory: From the Academy to the Public Sphere. [A Contribution to the 2023 Hamburg Institut für Sozialforschung Workshop].

Abstract

The humanities and humanistic social sciences are being defunded and are in decline. Book readership more generally is falling precipitously. Text is being replaced by images and photographs. Elaborate philosophical argument is ceding to 280-character broadsides. There are many contributing factors, including technological innovation, geopolitical economic pressures, looming crises like climate change, the pandemic, and nuclear proliferation that are wearing on the younger generations—even, perhaps, an invigorated politicization of Gen Z impatient with theory and focused on action. Is critical theory up to the task today of advancing social transformation? If so, must it change, and how?

In this essay, Bernard E. Harcourt describes ten key features of the current condition of critical theory and addresses three dimensions necessary for a full articulation of a vision for its future: methodological, substantive, and strategic. Regarding the latter dimension, the strategic, Harcourt proposes three interventions: first, reorganizing the teaching, transmission, and production of contemporary critical thought within the university and higher education; second, turning to new forms of visual communication in order to seize the potential of our new digital age; and third, returning the critical field to the public sphere through open, public, and inclusive public programming. Along all three dimensions, the overarching goal is to continue to push contemporary critical thought toward an engaged form of critical praxis, or what might be called “critique and praxis.”

Keywords: Critical Theory, Contemporary Critical Thought, critique, praxis, cooperation, abolition, humanities, critical race theory, Afropessimism, social media, semiotics, public sphere