Michael J. Thompson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University, USA. He is the author of The Politics of Inequality (Columbia University Press, 2007) and editor of Fleeing the City: Studies in the Culture and Politics of Antiurbanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Georg Lukács stands as a towering figure in the areas of critical theory, literary criticism, aesthetics, ethical theory and the philosophy of Marxism and German Idealism. Yet, despite his influence throughout the twentieth century, his contributions to the humanities and theoretical social sciences are marked by neglect. What has been lost is a crucial thinker in the tradition of critical theory, but also, by extension, a crucial set of ideas that can be used to shed new light on the major problems of contemporary society.
This book reconsiders Lukács' intellectual contributions in the light of recent intellectual developments in political theory, aesthetics, ethical theory, and social and cultural theory. An international team of contributors contend that Lukács' ideas and theoretical contributions have much to offer the theoretical paucity of the present. Ultimately the book reintegrates Lukács as a central thinker, not only in the tradition of critical theory, but also as a major theorist and critic of modernity, of capitalism, and of new trends in political theory, cultural criticism and legal theory.

Part I: Lukács' Philosophical Legacy \ 1. Lukács's and the Idealist Legacy Stephen Eric Bronner \ 2. Lukács and Marx After Marxism Tom Rockmore \ 3. Rethinking Reification Timothy Hall \ 4. Chvostismus und Dialektik: Lukács' Reply to His Critics Michael Löwy \ Part II: Extending Aesthetic Theory \ 5. A Post-Adornian Aesthetics Peter Uwe Hohendahl \ 6. The Development of the Novel Werner Jung \ 7. The Fight for Freedom of the Arts: Lukács on Dante and Goethe János Keleman \ 8. A Hegelian-Marxist Philosophy of Political Imagination Norman Fischer \ Part III: Politics, Society and Critical Theory \ 9. Lukács' Concept of Time Nichole Shippen \ 10. Lukács' Ambivalent Jurisprudence Katie Terezakis \ 11. Back to History? Lukács and the Antimonies of Communicative Critical Theory Konstantinos Kavoulakos \ 12. Reification and the Progress of Technology Andrew Feenberg \ 13. Lukács and the Revival of Critical Theory: Reconsidering the Ontologie Michael J. Thompson \ Bibliography \ Index