Search parameters

A group of researchers associated with the Institute for Social Researched founded in 1923 as an autonomous division of the Univ. of Frankfurt and a center for research in philosophy and the social sciences from a Marxist perspective. Leading members, such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and Herbert Marcuse, influenced by aspects of psychoanalysis and existentialism, developed a version of Marxism known as "critical theory." They formulated influential aesthetic theories and critiques of capitalist culture. [Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.].