First and second generation labels defer questions of the school’s continuity

Evidence

It has become customary to speak of first-generation and second-generation Critical Theorists, and to distinguish the older Frankfurt School from what has developed from it since the 1970s. This allows us to postpone, at least initially, the question of the Frankfurt School’s survival and of its continuity or discontinuity, and makes it easier to put a time-limit on its history which will not be too arbitrary. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the generational framing device used to periodize Critical Theory history.
• DEEPTHINKING: The generation-splitting device quietly presumes continuity while deferring it — a historiographical move worth sitting with.