How to Critique Authoritarian Populism

How to Critique Authoritarian Populism: Methodologies of the Frankfurt School offers a comprehensive introduction to the techniques used by the early Frankfurt School to study and combat authoritarianism and authoritarian populism. In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the writings of the early Frankfurt School, at the same time as authoritarian populist movements are growing in Europe and the Americas. This volume shows why and how Frankfurt School methodologies can and should be used to address the rise of authoritarianism today, bringing together critical theory scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss Frankfurt School approaches to dialectical philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, human subjects research, discourse analysis and media studies.

Contributors include: Robert J. Antonio, Stefanie Baumann, Christopher Craig Brittain, Dustin J. Byrd, Mariana Caldas Pinto Ferreira, Panayota Gounari, Peter-Erwin Jansen, Imaculada Kangussu, Douglas Kellner, Dan Krier, Lauren Langman, Claudia Leeb, Gregory Joseph Menillo, Jeremiah Morelock, Felipe Ziotti Narita, Michael R. Ott, Charles Reitz, Avery Schatz, Rudolf J. Siebert, William M. Sipling, David Norman Smith, Daniel Sullivan, and AK Thompson.

ISBN: 9781642597677

Publication date: March 15, 2022

Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Frankfurt School Methodologies
  Jeremiah Morelock and Daniel Sullivan

PART 1
Dialectics

1 When History Fails Us: Immanent Critique of Capitalism to the New Right and Beyond
   Robert J. Antonio

2 A Dialectical Constellation of Authoritarian Populism in the United States and Brazil
   Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita

3 Capital Fetishism and the Authoritarian Personality: Critical Theory in the Weimar Years
   David Norman Smith

4 Mythology, Enlightenment, and Dialectic: Determinate Negation
   Rudolf J. Siebert, Michael R. Ott, and Dustin J. Byrd

PART 2
Psychoanalysis

5 The Dialectic of Unreason: Authoritarianism and the Irrational
   Lauren Langman and Avery Schatz

6 Adorno and Freud Meet Kazuo Ishiguro: The Rise of the Far- Right from a Psychoanalytic Critical Theory Perspective
   Claudia Leeb

7 Marcuse and the Symbolic Roles of the Father: Someone to Watch over Me
   Imaculada Kangussu

8 “Variation within a Single Paradigm”: The Latent Authoritarian Dynamics of the Culture Industry
   Gregory Joseph Menillo

9 What Would Jesus Do? Christianity as Wish Image and Historical Bloc
   AK Thompson

PART 3
Human Subjects

10 Mobilization of Bias Today: The Renewed Use of Established Techniques; A Reconsideration of Two Studies on Prejudice from the Institute for Social Research
   Peter-Erwin Jansen

11 From ‘False’ to ‘Reified’ Consciousness: Tracing the isr’s Critical Research on Authoritarianism
   Daniel Sullivan

12 Franz Neumann’s Behemoth and Trumpism: Comprehending the Beast of Bad Government
   Dan Krier

13 Donald Trump and the Stigmata of Democracy: Adorno and the Consolidation of a Religious Racket
   Christopher Craig Brittain

PART 4
Media Discourse

14 Siegfried Kracauer and the Interpretation of Films
   Jeremiah Morelock

15 How to Mediate Reality: Thinking Documentary Film with Adorno and Horkheimer
   Stefanie Baumann

16 One-dimensional Social Media: The Discourse of Authoritarianism and the Authoritarianism of Discourse
   Panayota Gounari

17 Applying and Extrapolating Prophets of Deceit: Heuristics of ‘Agitator’ Identification through Löwenthal and Guterman’s Analysis
   William M. Sipling

18 Dialectical Images and Contemporary Times: Thinking Critically about Authoritarian Populism
   Mariana Caldas Pinto Ferreira

 Afterword
   Douglas Kellner

Index