Furthering the analysis from my doctoral work, the present project aims to reconstruct the intellectual history of the first generation of the Frankfurt school oriented by the messianic pathology of the group as a whole and of members. It entails a description of the dynamics of the group from the beginning of the school untill the moment Habermas takes over.

The work hypothesis (which I successfully tested in Benjamin’s case) is that we can confidently speak in the case of this particular group of the intelligentsia, of o „messianic ethos” that influences the way in which are articulated both their theoretical systems and their practical decisions. The advantage of the (modern) messianic premise lays in its capacity to circumscribe not only the enthusiasm for and participation in a political movement that allegedly changes the world, but also the mefiance towards the same promise and the refusal of the state of affairs.

Using a method of analysis that places the body of thought dialectically against the biographies, the research will try to go in the depths of these messianic pathologies and to show their specific vocabulary of tropes by means of digital humanities tools.

A full-length study is available here.