Urban studies, critical theory, radical politics: Eight theses for Peter Marcuse

Abstract

The celebration of Peter Marcuse’s 80th birthday at the Right to the City conference in the fall of 2008 provided a poignant moment to reflect on the circumstances under which urban studies, critical theory and radical politics have come together so instructively in his own life and work. An adequate consideration of these involves not only the personal and political dimensions of his exemplary career, but also the world‐historical forces that triangulated radical thought, revolutionary politics and metropolitan life in the 20th century. Their trans‐Atlantic trajectories—from the revolutionary conjunctures between the world wars through military–Keynesian restorations of capital to the uneven globalization of neoliberal imperialisms—raise a challenging question concerning the legacies and possibilities of critical urban theory. How has urban studies learned from and contributed to critical theory, in response to the demands of radical politics? In this paper, I reflect on the relevance of the Frankfurt School and Henri Lefebvre in particular for drawing a balance sheet on critical urban theory following the experiences of modernism and postmodernism, while suggesting that its future now rests on the delivery of a radical politics based on a revolutionary conception the Right to the City—one capable of doing justice to the utopian moments alive in an Age of Empire and a Planet of Slums.