Critical Theory in Critical Times: Transforming the Global Political and Economic Order

We live in critical times. We face a global crisis in economics and finance, a global ecological crisis, and a constant barrage of international disputes. Perhaps most dishearteningly, there seems to be little faith in our ability to address such difficult problems. However, there is also a more positive sense in which these are critical times. The world's current state of flux gives us a unique window of opportunity for shaping a new international order that will allow us to cope with current and future global crises.

In Critical Theory in Critical Times, eleven of the most distinguished critical theorists offer new perspectives on recent crises and transformations of the global political and economic order. Essays from J rgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Cristina Lafont, Rainer Forst, Wendy Brown, Christoph Menke, Nancy Fraser, Rahel Jaeggi, Amy Allen, Penelope Deutscher, and Charles Mills address pressing issues including international human rights and democratic sovereignty, global neoliberalism, novel approaches to the critique of capitalism, critical theory's Eurocentric heritage, and new directions offered by critical race theory and postcolonial studies. Sharpening the conceptual tools of critical theory, the contributors to Critical Theory in Critical Times reveal new ways of expanding the diverse traditions of the Frankfurt School in response to some of the most urgent and important challenges of our times.

Penelope Deutscher is Joan and Sarepta Harrison Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. She is the author or editor of a number of books, including Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later (2016) and Foucault’s Futures: A Critique of Reproductive Reason (2017), both from Columbia University Press.

Cristina Lafont is professor of philosophy at Northwestern University. She is the author of The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy (1999), Heidegger, Language, and World-Disclosure (2000), and Global Governance and Human Rights (2012), and coeditor of The Habermas Handbook.