I thought Adorno, on our first meeting, the most arrogant, self-indulgent (intellectually and culturally) man I have ever met. Some 20 years later, I can think of additional claimants for that position, but I doubt if they are serious rivals (Donald MacRae, cited in Morrison, 1978, pp. 331-332).
The Frankfurt School was a group of critical theorists associated with the Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute of Social Research) which was located first at the University of Frankfurt (1923-1933), then in Geneva, Switzerland (1933-35), Columbia University in New York (1935-1949), and finally back at the University of Frankfurt, from 1949 to present. Some of the theorists associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School included Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno (née Wiesengrund), [w:Herbert Marcuse], Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, Leo Lowenthal, and Friedrich Pollock.
Felix Weil began the Institute of Social Research in 1923. The theoretical basis of the Institute was Marxist, to no small degree because of Carl Grünberg, who served as director from 1923-1930. Max Horkheimer succeeded Grünberg as director and served in that capacity until 1960, when Theodor Adorno became director, until his death in 1969. These theorists were all associated with the Institute in the 1920s, except for Marcuse, who began working with the Institute in 1932. From the late 1950s Jürgen Habermas would be involved with the Institute, but for a number of reasons his work is often considered separate from that of the Frankfurt School. The Institute for Social Research continues to operate at the University of Frankfurt, but what is known as the Frankfurt School did not extend beyond the theorists associated with it.
The interests of the Frankfurt School theorists in the 1920s and 1930s lay predominantly in a Marxist analysis of social and economic processes, and the role of the individual and the group in relation to these processes. Their particular relevance to communication theory lies primarily in Adorno's idea of the culture industry, and Marcuse's concept of the "one dimensional" man.
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