Marcuse’s path to New Left celebrity bypassed the Institute entirely

Evidence

Marcuse, whose connection with the Institut had grown increasingly tenuous during the forties, chose to remain with the State Department until 195o, when he returned to Columbia as a lecturer in sociology and senior fellow at the Russian Institute. During the next two years he also did research at the Russian Research Center at Harvard, which led to his book Soviet Marxism. In 1954 he joined the history of ideas program at Brandeis, remaining for eleven years, during which his underground reputation, based on Eros and Civilization and One-Dimensional Man, steadily grew. By the time he left Waltham, Massachusetts, for the University of California at San Diego, in 1965, he was on the verge of becoming an internationally celebrated mentor of the nascent New Left. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 854

Categorization

• QUESTION: How did Marcuse’s State Department work and the two one-dimensional texts convert into New Left mentorship? Worth chasing the reception story.
• XREF: connects to: Marcuse’s militancy alienated him from his former Institute colleagues. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 4; Marcuse served the New Left as a canonical revolutionary theorist by 1968. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 4; Lacking institutional prestige freed Marcuse from presenting a responsible public face — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 864 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Lacking institutional prestige freed Marcuse from presenting a responsible public face #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 864
• Marcuse’s American popularity carried Critical Theory into the New Left #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 93