Nothing to Lose but Their Borrowing Privileges: the Frankfurt School at Columbia

Through an exploration of the term of "para-academic," this article examines the Institute for Social Research's liminal position of being "next to" but outside of the academy. Founded to be "next to" but independent from the University of Frankfurt in 1923, the Institute retained a para-academic structure during its American exile between 1934-1949. For over a decade, the Institute hovered at the margins of Columbia University under the auspices of a program called University Extension that effectively relegated its participants to the role of second-class citizens. This para-academic relationship with Columbia prolonged the Institute's marginal, precarious status, but it also provided its members with the freedom to pursue their own research agendas that went against the grain of existing academic disciplines. With an eye towards the contemporary American resurgence in critical theory, this article interrogates the concept of the "Frankfurt School" as a school by focusing on how it diverged from traditional academic institutions. This history helps to explain the unexpected afterlives of critical theory in spheres beyond academia in a way that resonates with the Institute's foundational principles. Precisely because it developed outside of traditional disciplinary structures, critical theory continues to be a fertile ground of critique today, exemplified by the rise of para-academic institutions like the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research modeled after its namesake.