Module Directory

This module introduces students to different traditions of “Critical Theory”. The point of critical-theoretical approaches to philosophy is to identify marginalisation and oppression, to understand what drives these phenomena, and to help us emancipate ourselves and others from them.

At Essex, we embrace a wide notion of critical theory that includes, for instance, Frankfurt School Critical Theory (e.g., Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas, Honneth), Marx and the Marxist tradition, Contemporary French Theory (e.g., Foucault, Derrida, Rancière, Badiou), feminism and Critical Race Theory. The “Critical Theory” module provides students with the tools to critically engage with the contemporary social and political world.

The aims of this module are:

• To introduce students to key topics in Critical Theory (e.g., alienation, social pathology, deconstruction, exploitation; progress).


• To enable students to identify and critically examine the assumptions that underpin different forms of marginalisation and oppression and to critically evaluate current human practices that are informed by these problematic assumptions.


• To enable students to appreciate the different ways in which philosophical insights and skills can inform attempts by political activists who fight against discrimination and oppression.

By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:

1. Reconstruct the philosophical positions in Critical Theory that they have studied;


2. Critically evaluate the strategies and positions of critical theorists;


3. Understand the practical implications of such strategies and positions, and how they bear on on-going public debates and conflicts;


4. Begin to form their own opinions on the solutions others have suggested to the complex problems of marginalisation and oppression that we face;

Skills of your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

By the end of the module, students should also have acquired a set of transferable skills, and in particular be able to:

1. Process diverse (and sometimes conflicting) arguments and empirical studies;


2. Compare and evaluate different arguments;


3. Write and present verbally a succinct and precise account of strategies, arguments, and their presuppositions and implications;


4. Be sensitive to the positions of others and communicate their own views in ways that are accessible to them;

This year we will be looking at the Frankfurt School tradition of critical theory, with a particular focus on the idea of social pathology – that is, the idea that society can be and is dysfunctional in some to-be-specified way analogous to how a body can be ill. We will explore how this idea was taken up by different thinkers within the Frankfurt School tradition, and what we can learn from this about social critique and methodologies for undertaking such critique. 

This module will be delivered via:

• Three hours per week to cover lecture and seminar sessions.

Students are expected to undertake the reading before classes and to be prepared to engage in discussion.

Students are expected to prepare and deliver one 5-minute presentation in the course of the module.

There will also be a Reading Week when no teaching will take place, exact week to be confirmed.