SOURCE: “Critical Theory at the Barricades,” in Lingua Franca: The Review of Academic Life, Vol. 8, No. 8, November, 1998, pp. 19-22.

In the following essay, Isenberg examines the student backlash against Adorno and other members of the Frankfurt School in Germany in the 1960s.

On April 22, 1969, shortly after beginning a lecture in his course on dialectical thought before an audience of nearly one thousand students at the University of Frankfurt, the eminent Frankfurt School sociologist and Marxist cultural critic Theodor W. Adorno found himself in an unusual situation. A student in one of the back rows interrupted him, demanding that he engage in “self-criticism.” Another student silently walked up to the blackboard and wrote the following words: “He who only allows dear Adorno to rule will uphold capitalism his entire life.” After Adorno told the class that they would have five minutes to decide if his lecture should continue, three...