Critical Theories Revisited: Immanent Critique and Coloniality

This session aims at revisiting the so-called Critical Theory of Society – the conceptual framework of what was presented as Ideologiekritik by the likes of Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse, to name only a few, or later developments concerning this theoretical tradition – and examining it under a critical lens. While it exposed different limitations identified in other theoretical models, from the Marxian orthodoxy to the positivist and normativist strains which they called “Traditional Theories”, Critical Theory nevertheless features other constraints that should also be addressed. This discussion may take different paths. In this session, we are interested in papers that address Critical Theory’s relationship (or lack thereof) with the critique of colonialism and coloniality. Proposals are welcome that question Critical Theory in this regard via (i) an approach of immanent critique sustained by the debates of its inner circle; (ii) a contrast to its recent developments under the auspices of newer generations of critical theorists; and (iii) a mobilization of other theoretical frameworks, such as de- and post-colonialism, which contribute towards aspects that were insufficiently developed or entirely ignored by those authors. Papers that intend to demonstrate the (existing or potential) affinities between Critical Theory and the critique of colonialism and coloniality are equally welcome. Our main interest is to pluralize what should be seen as critical and what is legitimized as theory, stimulating ongoing discussions on the center-periphery dynamics of knowledge production, the place of intellectuals of the Global South, etc.