Critical Theory basic topics

Below is a list of basic topics in critical theory -- topics which will help the beginner become familiar with the field of critical theory. For a comprehensive list, see List of critical theory topics.

Major concepts, key terms, theories, schools of thought
Reason, Enlightenment, Negative dialectic, Communicative action, Public sphere, Civic society, Constellation, Cultural industry, Late capitalism.

Major theorists
Fredric Jameson, Herbert Marcuse, Taccheri, Louis Althusser, Jean Baudrillard, Stuart Hall, Slavoj Zizek, Raymond Williams, Moshe Postone, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault, David Harvey, Loïc Wacquant, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak. See also List of critical theorists.

Frankfurt School members and their close colleagues
Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Walter Benjamin, Leo Lowenthal, Gyorgy Lukacs, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht.

Major works
One-Dimensional Man, Escape from Freedom, Theory of Communicative Action, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Negative Dialectic, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Writing and Difference, Of Grammatology.

Major historical events
Habermas-Luhmann debate, Habermas-Lyotard debate, Adorno-Popper debate.

Related schools of thought
Deconstruction, Neo-Marxism, Post-Marxism, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Poststructuralism.