Critical theory and feeling: the affective politics of the early Frankfurt school

This text offers a unique and timely reading of the early Frankfurt School in response to the recent 'affective turn' within the arts and humanities.

Resisting the overly rationalist tendencies of political philosophy, it argues that critical theory actively cultivates a powerful connection between thinking and feeling, and rediscovers a range of often neglected concepts that were of vital importance to the first generation of critical theorists, including melancholia, hope, (un)happiness, objects and mimesis.

In doing so, it brings the dynamic work of Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch and Siegfried Kracauer into conversation with more recent debates around politics and affect.