The U of A Humanities Center and the Fulbright College Office of Undergraduate Excellence and Global Engagement invite faculty and students from the U of A and members of the community to a public lecture presented by Matthew Handelman, associate professor of Germanic languages and literatures at Michigan State University.

Handelman will speak on "The Mirror of Critical Theory: The Frankfurt School in Conspiracy Theories," at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, in Gearhart Hall, room 026.

Handelman holds a Ph.D. in Germanic languages and literatures from the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching approach the intersection of mathematics and humanities by considering the impact of mathematical thinking on critical theory in the 20th and 21st centuries.

He is the author of The Mathematical Imagination: On the Origin and Promise of Critical Thinking, published by Fordham University Press in 2019, and his research has also appeared in The Germanic Review, Scientia Poetica and The Leo Baeck Yearbook. He is a specialist in the growing field of digital humanities, and he currently serves as interim director of digital humanities at Michigan State. His digital projects include the interdisciplinary Graphic Narratives Network, which advances scholarship on verbal-visual texts in animation, comics, graphic novels, photo essays and film. 

In this talk, Handelmann will trace the discussion surrounding notions of "cultural Marxism" and its place in conspiracy theories, past and present. The theory he will address holds that a group of German-Jewish intellectuals known as the Frankfurt School, who went into exile from Nazi Germany in the United States, were to blame for no less than the current political polarization in America, the erosion of traditional values and the attack on so-called Western culture.

His talk will explore the curious origins of cultural Marxism on the Left and its latest manifestations on the New Right, and it will argue that the conspiracy theory, however misguided its analyses actually are, may still have something to tell us about critical theory. 

Handelman's lecture is made possible through an Outreach Incentive Grant from the U of A Humanities Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.