Key Figures

Influential Thinkers

Explore 21 key figures in critical theory

Achille Mbembe

1957–present • Cameroonian

Postcolonial Theory African Philosophy

Key Ideas

Necropolitics, Postcolony

Angela Davis

1944–present • American

Black Feminism Marxist Feminism

Key Ideas

Prison Abolition, Intersectionality

Antonio Gramsci

1891–1937 • Italian

Marxism Western Marxism

bell hooks

1952–2021 • American

Black Feminism Feminist Theory

Key Ideas

Intersectional Feminism, White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy

Edward W. Said

1935–2003 • Palestinian-American

Postcolonial Theory Comparative Literature

Key Ideas

Orientalism, Secular Criticism

Frantz Fanon

1925–1961 • Martinican-Algerian

Postcolonial Theory Black Radicalism

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

1942–present • Indian-American

Postcolonial Theory Deconstruction

Key Ideas

Can the Subaltern Speak?, Strategic Essentialism

Georg Lukács

1885–1971 • Hungarian

Western Marxism Marxism

Key Ideas

Reification, Totality

Guy Debord

1931–1994 • French

Situationist International Marxism

Key Ideas

The Spectacle, Détournement

Herbert Marcuse

1898–1979 • German-American

Frankfurt School Critical Theory

Key Ideas

One-Dimensional Man, Repressive Tolerance

Jacques Derrida

1930–2004 • Algerian-French

Poststructuralism Continental Philosophy

Key Ideas

Deconstruction, Différance

Judith Butler

1956–present • American

Feminist Theory Queer Theory

Key Ideas

Gender Performativity, Gender Trouble

Karl Marx

1818–1883 • German

Marxism Critical Theory

Louis Althusser

1918–1990 • Algerian-French

Structural Marxism Continental Philosophy

Key Ideas

Ideological State Apparatuses, Interpellation

Mark Fisher

1968–2017 • British

Cultural Criticism Post-Cybernetic Culture

Key Ideas

Capitalist Realism, Hauntology

Max Horkheimer

1895–1973 • German

Frankfurt School Critical Theory

Key Ideas

Critical Theory, Instrumental Reason

Michel Foucault

1926–1984 • French

Philosophy, History of Ideas

Poststructuralism Post-Marxism

Key Ideas

Power/Knowledge, Biopower

Silvia Federici

1942–present • Italian-American

Marxist Feminism Autonomist Marxism

Key Ideas

Social Reproduction Theory, Primitive Accumulation

Slavoj Žižek

1949–present • Slovenian

Lacanian Psychoanalysis Critical Theory

Key Ideas

The Real, Ideological Fantasy

Theodor W. Adorno

1903–1969 • German

Frankfurt School Critical Theory

Walter Benjamin

1892–1940 • German

Frankfurt School Western Marxism

Key Ideas

Aura, Dialectical Image