Vol. 22 · No. 3 · Issue 71 · Fall 2004
The Frankfurt School's Invitation from Columbia University
How the Horkheimer Circle Settled on Morningside Heights

Thomas Wheatland

Get Adobe Acrobat. Download full article (74 KB) [subscribers only]

Abstract

Oddly enough, the Frankfurt School's relationship to Columbia University has been somewhat neglected by its many historians. It is not hard to understand why the Horkheimer circle would have desired to settle at Columbia, but it is peculiar that the Frankfurt School would have received an invitation from Columbia. After all, why would Columbia University's conservative president, Nicholas Murray Butler, and its sociology department extend an invitation to a group of predominantly German-speaking social philosophers with strong links to the Marxian left?