17.07.2026: Symposium: Reworking Critical Marxist Theory

Some have said that Frankfurt School Critical Theory has been domesticated, or even that it was so from the start. Under circumstances of multiple crises and rampant fascism, however, critical thought should be sharpened rather than lamented. To that end, this symposium seeks to outline the contours of a Critical Marxist Theory adequate to our times. Assembling an international panel of speakers, its goal is to identify and develop practices of radical critique equal to Marx’s “categorical imperative to overturn all conditions in which the human is a humiliated, enslaved, abandoned and despised being.” 

1 pm WELCOME

1.15-2 pm LUKAS MEISNER – Critical Marxist Theory: Beyond the Frankfurt School

Coffee break

2.15-3 pm BAFTA SARBO – The Question of Racism and Imperialism in the Frankfurt School

Coffee break

3.15-4 pm DAVID CUNNINGHAM – The paradoxical form par excellence: Adorno and the critical theory of the novel

Coffee break

4.15-5 pm – KETI CHUKHROV – On the Cultural Universalism of Socialist Marxist Thought

Coffee break

5.15-6 pm DOUGLAS SPENCER – Architecture and the Value Form: Fictitious Capital and Concrete Abstraction

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7.30-9 pm Panel discussion in Cooperation with Helle Panke: Douglas Spencer, Bafta Sarbo, David Cunningham, Keti Chukhrov and Lukas Meisner: How to rework Critical Marxist Theory?

All events are in Englisch. The entrance for the conference is free, entrance for panel discussion in the evening 2,- Euro.

No reservation necessary, for infos about the conference please mail: lukas.meisner@uni-erfurt.de

Kosten: 2 € (Podiumsgespräch)