What is Critical Theory? Douglas Kellner LIVE!

On Thursday, MAY 5, we will have Q&A Marcuse’s ablest student and the greatest living philosopher to ever appear on a Meetup. Douglas Kellner—Rick Roderick’s dissertation advisor and the world's foremost authority on Marcuse, Critical Theory, postmodernism, Fredric Jameson, and media/cultural studies—will be joining us and taking all questions!

Kellner is George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA and is author of many books on social theory, politics, history, and culture, including Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film, co-authored with Michael Ryan, Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity, Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (with Steven Best), Television and the Crisis of Democracy, The Persian Gulf TV War, Media Culture, The Postmodern Turn (with Steven Best), the six-volume Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, along with countless other books and articles.

This is an incredible opportunity for anyone curious about the most ambitious of all philosophical practices—the attempt to comprehend our zeitgeist in thought. But how can we render this mess as a synoptic unity? And how can we gain the critical distance necessary merely to perceive it, since the “it” here is the cultural machinery that generates our very ability to think? And how can we find positive norms and aesthetic ends weighty enough to motivate us if discourses rest on … other discourses?

This maximally broad and deep mode of philosophizing, called Critical Theory, is Kellner's expertise.

So come join us for a genuinely psychedelic cognitive experience, where we will excavate and examine the political unconscious and attempt to give birth to our own mothers.

Having a Meetup on Marcuse (and Critical Theory) with Douglas Kellner is like having one on Whitehead hosted by Charles Hartshorne. Or one on Newton hosted by Carl Sagan. Or one on Nietzsche hosted by Walter Kaufmann. I don't know how this miracle came about, but don't miss it.

You can read Kellner’s improbable Wikipedia page here, and check out his books (including many standard college textbooks) here.

METHOD
In order to prepare for the Kellner-fest, there is a documentary you should watch and a conversation you should hear.

(1) The documentary, which is delightful and entertaining, is Herbert's Hippopotamus (1996). Link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnZ8WaiXnBY](https://meet.meetup.com/ls/click?upn=SDNnya-2FgLI6CfUa8do8Zd1OYmj9RMo0BjT2BwxlwRJbHT-2FszpwezqBWMVoGTw61amzThNRlZKIzxp7uP1B2-2B3Q-3D-3DQkh2_q5AsYP284itBp52ALW6QOBX5vQnKy0AiChh2oC-2BPl6Oi9oDK-2Fi-2FsdDZPVvsK3BOalEZE-2BU4KdjqK2KzJFPvX-2FvLLIxKbgfLcCLKApu4PqZ93wbS0uphOckS5xndELFWKktawk8kHkLHl3goaPqha4v5WL3xKLCZz7AfAFWjariOCZCjThfHvtoFmWf8wp8fE9AqaJnLB1jKznB-2BAB6CegcWrX1eixj0gv3M6MPkwqo6n3bV8GPGpEEKuoguMufEcG1AWT4BvGA69L57kCSLMTotkrqb4HQppE-2B5JJOobR-2B5wMKx16YD6RuXhrBz1MdL9tedjtHdQKykxjqJtLgjQ4bjm2cm-2BLOM7v4cx7SnfdOYRK-2BemfvLYy06MPZA8us1n-2BTjRiXBxt0RHjGN1idMP5O4-2FZ-2FnHXETc6wxcAi0uvXoV9C8JOS142jPIBCCIMrPxUTzFVTka37eH9E9gC4s2oH2QW0zmU50F-2BO6mpCxLV6hZUWdbRn0dboAyZGXgbiJKGDhVG8OFU3fTiWdghV-2BxDpOuzNC-2B2nYrF9M4quNS-2BOR8T1aNxDjzk-2Bhf8geZN5sSmv3sDChvRPAswAugt37AMwixK8sS7acXZtq27LpjOr5hRZUGRY5uIldSAYRt-2F8y-2B)

(2) The conversation is an episode of the BBC Radio 4 series In Our Time with Raymond Geuss and others. It gives a really great synopsis of the Frankfurt School and all the hot topics and problems that orbit it. Thanks to Jean for this awesome find. Link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2d2HKwny9w](https://meet.meetup.com/ls/click?upn=SDNnya-2FgLI6CfUa8do8Zd1OYmj9RMo0BjT2BwxlwRJZqgmMtub8v32eDRNf08H3momCAz5oQu4fBrmDqkPLS-2FQ-3D-3Dfutk_q5AsYP284itBp52ALW6QOBX5vQnKy0AiChh2oC-2BPl6Oi9oDK-2Fi-2FsdDZPVvsK3BOalEZE-2BU4KdjqK2KzJFPvX-2FvLLIxKbgfLcCLKApu4PqZ93wbS0uphOckS5xndELFWKktawk8kHkLHl3goaPqha4v5WL3xKLCZz7AfAFWjariOCZCjThfHvtoFmWf8wp8fE9AqaJnLB1jKznB-2BAB6CegcWrX1eixj0gv3M6MPkwqo6n3bV8GPGpEEKuoguMufEcG1AWT4BvGA69L57kCSLMTotkrqb4HQppE-2B5JJOobR-2B5wMKx16YD6RuXhrBz1MdL9tedjtHdQKykxjqJtLgjQ4bjm2cm-2BLOM7v4cx7SnfdOYRK-2BemfvLYy06MPZA8us1n-2BTjRiXBxt0RHjGN1idMP5O4-2FZ-2FnHXETc6wxcAi0uvXoV9C8JOS142jPIBCCIMrPxUTzFVTka37eH9E9gC4s2oH2QW0zmU50F-2BO6mpCxLV6gdV2ImGx5BR2Bi3lkjIeinHVKkWfk4kvEPL72xitYGBN6lLMTZns6XaNVz9O0-2Fa3coxEeRlfl4c25Bg3lIwOrDnNvvDiXVi0HjpgSsmoUjGPsUU71Tns-2F3Ejtdh1fbJx9TO9pnaJjTj-2FDaiYOXl2nM)

RELEASE THE QUESTIONS
Feel free to post or send questions as they arise. You can either (a) post them to the Comments area (below), or (b) send them to me by Meetup message (for privacy’s sake) and I’ll pass them on to Doug, who will answer them at the start of the event. Deadline for questions is Monday, May 2.