I want to learn about critical theory? What books should I read?

>>9496130
That's pretty broad. What are you interested in?

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>>9496130
Assuming that "critical theory" and "literary theory" have some overlap, you could do worse than pic attached.

Why the fuck would you want to learn critical theory instead of the scientific method?
Do you want to be cucked by the kikes?

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>>9496159
And I hate to invoke the meme, but critical and literary theory does have a line of influence that goes back to the greeks. Pic attached, though impractical for actual reading (big book with tiny type) and way too expensive, has all that you'd need to start.

>>9496159
How do I do better?

>>9496164
>has all that you'd need to start.
This. just start from the beginning and read all of it!

>>9496163
This. Only learn things that you agree with. Fuck everything else.

>>9496163
Because it is my understanding that a lot of the ideas of modern liberals and university leftists are based on critical theory. I want to see what all the fuss is about and whether there are any redeeming points.

I should probably read Marx too.

I like to read from different perspectives.

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>>9496165
Pic related then:
http://www.critical-theory.com/87-critical-theorist-books/

>>9496159
>Assuming

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD00D35CBC75941BD

>>9496842
If you're going into things with a bias and heading straight into Marx and other theorists without any background, then you will likely not take anything useful out of it.

Either get a study guide for what you're reading, or otherwise have the necessary background knowledge for reading from the original texts. For Marx, this would include reading Hegel.

If you really want to understand the leftist, critical theory uni people, then you should read Marx, Foucault (after reading Saussure and Barthes and competently understanding both structuralism and post-structuralism), Susan Sontag, Judith Butler, Edward Said (although he's not really 'critical theory'), Freud and Lacan.

If you want to understand university liberals (and you mean liberal in the American sense), then all you need to do is read Rawls' huge book.

>>9496872
>To read Marx you need to read Hegel, plus X, Y and Z.

EVERY FUCKING TIME. Why do I need Hegel to read Marx?

How do I read Hegel? What goes before Hegel?

Isn't he like the pinnacle of difficulty?

>>9496842
Modern liberal ideas are "based" on critical theory in the sense that it's botched up critical theory that has gone through 40 years of liberal revisionism. It has very little to do with actual critical theory. Actual critical theory is basically dead in an academic sense, the liberal establishment has been fighting it since the 60s.

If you have some basic knowledge of Marx, Freud and Weber you are basically good to go. Despite the name, most Frankfurt School critical theory stuff is pretty easy to read compared to more abstract philosophy.

If you've read an introduction to CT you should probably just jump into the Dialectic Of Enlightment. It's basically a crazy, passionate rant against the last 3000 years of civilization. I think it's the most powerful book that has come out of CT and has basically nothing in common with modern college liberalism.

>>9496884
No, you don't need to read Hegel to get into Marx or CT. Maybe if you want to read Negative Dialectics but other than that that's just fucking overkill. Even Marx is a fucking blackhole, actually reading Capital will take god knows how many hours of your life and sanity.

Like I said, most of the Frankfurt School stuff is fairly accessible if you have some basic knowledge of their influences. Marx and Hegel are much bigger mountains and you can always go back to them.

>>9496884
>Why do I need Hegel to read Marx?
because marx is very explicitly reworking hegel. you can just read a summary of hegelian dialectic and you should be ok.

>Isn't he like the pinnacle of difficulty?
you're thinking of kant.

>>9496870
this and read the assignments

>>9496884
>How do I read Hegel?
Look for Hegel towards the bottom here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/mobilebasic?pli=1

>What goes before Hegel?
Heraclitus, Aristotle's Organon, Kant

>>9496884
>EVERY FUCKING TIME. Why do I need Hegel to read Marx?

I said you can either read Hegel or get a good study guide to read Marx. If you read the original sources without someone guiding you through the ideas, you need to have the background material and a good working knowledge of the terms the writers are using.

>>9496130
Here's Marcuse so you can hear it from the man himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm3euZS5nLo

>>9496899
Jesus christ guys, the poor guy just wants to read some CT. If anyone actually went and read Heraclititus, Aristotele, Kant and Hegel he would emerge from his basement like 5 years later.

>>9496896
Kant is hard but it's basically universally agreed on that Hegel is harder.

>>9496884
it's worth noting, that if you did read Capital, you would have more knowledge about Marx than most people.

Most leftists at universities (and most people in fact, both on the left and right) just base their opinions on the basic things they're told.

Few people read Marx these days as anything other than historical curiosity. Later Marxist thinkers are more important for current ideas than Marx himself though, particularly Althusser, Gramsci. Terry Eagleton is also a marxist and literary critic. Then come the poststructuralists, Foucault is probably the only worth reading, then come the postmodernists like Lyotard and Baudrillard.

Richard Dyer is good for postcolonial studies.
Judith Butler is probably the most important for queer theory.

I'm not really familiar with current feminist though, but Sara Ahmed is one I can think of, and then there are the older ones like Cixous and Iragiray. But those two are easy to take out of context in our time period, and somewhat irrelevant now.