Max Pensky
Biographic Data
| ID | 1042318 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Max Pensky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Max |
| FAMILY NAME | Pensky |
| SIGNATURE | PENSKY M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Binghamton University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3643-4295 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 43 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
After Impunity: The Anti-Impunity Norm, The Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace, and the Future of International Criminal Law
The predominance of international criminal law as a frontline response to atrocity crimes prioritizes the countering of impunity as an overarching goal. A corresponding “anti-impunity norm” identifies the legal punishment of individual perpetrators as a core requirement in legal responses to atrocities. This anti-impunity norm – the requirement to prosecute and punish – is also a legal obligation for state parties to the International Criminal Co…
War and Literary Studies
Round Table (Part 4): The Marginal Man
Round Table (Full Symposium): What’s Raphaël Lemkin Got to do with Genocide Studies? A Conversation on Gender, Culture, Economics, Categorical Violence, and Colonization with Professors Sarah Federman…
s book covers the emergence of the concept and word "genocide," contextualizing Lemkin's intellectual development in interwar Poland and exploring the evolving connection between his philosophical writings, his work in the law of international finance and economic conflict, his juridical works, and his politics over the following decades. Part intellectual biography, part legal and diplomatic history
Natural History and Aesthetic Truth in Aesthetic Theory
Theodor W. Adorno’s claim in Aesthetic Theory that artworks have a truth content, and that this truth content in turn depends on philosophical interpretation, is among the work’s most challenging and obscure claims. This article argues that “The Idea of Natural History,” Adorno’s lecture dating to 1932, offers important resources for interpreting the claim of art’s truth content. Reading the lecture’s core idea of transience, the article proposes…
A Companion to Adorno
Jewishness and jurisgenesis: On Seyla Benhabib’s Exile, Statelessness and Migration
The postwar era saw a remarkable transformation of international law, from a loose arrangement of agreements designed to reduce collective action problems to a normative commitment to the inherent dignity of the individual person. Seyla Benhabib’s new book shows the extent to which this transformation was a matter of deeply personal experiences. Understanding this dialectic between the personal and the universal is crucial for understanding not j…
Of Straw Men and Humanitarians: On Rajan Menon’s The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention
Authoritarianism: Three Inquiries in Critical Theory
New old Prague
Two cheers for the impunity norm
International criminal law (ICL) is dedicated to the battle against impunity. However, the concept of impunity lacks clarity. Providing that clarity also reveals challenges for the current state and future prospects of the project of ICL, which this article frames in cosmopolitan terms. The ‘impunity norm’ of ICL is generally presented in a deontic form. It holds that impunity for perpetrators of international crimes is a wrong so profound that s…
Historical and intellectual contexts
It is not unusual, when reading about the lives and works of influential philosophers, to encounter the view that their work transcends the times that the authors live in; that the most influential philosophers think and write about highly abstract metaphysical or universal ideas and problems that are not specific to any particular historical or social context, and that for this reason they and their texts are “in conversation”, not with their ow…
Jürgen Habermas: Key Concepts
The significance of Kant s thought is matched by its complexity. His revolutionary ideas are systematically interconnected and he presents them using a forbidding technical vocabulary. A careful investigation of the key concepts that structure Kant s work is essential to the comprehension of his philosophical project. This book provides an accessible introduction to Kant by explaining each of the key concepts of his philosophy. The book is organi…
The Ends of Solidarity: Discourse Theory in Ethics and Politics
Amnesty on trial: Impunity, accountability, and the norms of international law
An emerging consensus regards domestic amnesties for international crimes as generally inconsistent with international law. This legal consensus rests on a norm against impunity: the chief role of international criminal law, and of the fledgling International Criminal Court (ICC), is to end impunity for violators of the worst of criminal acts. But the anti-impunity norm, and the anti-amnesty consensus that has arisen from it, now face serious dif…
The Ends of Solidarity: Discourse Theory in Ethics and Politics (S U N Y Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)
Two Cheers for Cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitan Solidarity as Second‐Order Inclusion
Time of Transitions
Author's Foreword. Part I From Bonn to Berlin. 1 There are Alternatives!. Part II Interventions. 2 From Power Politics to Cosmopolitan Society. 3 A Sort of Logo of the Free West. 4 The Finger of Blame: The Germans and Their Memorial. Part III Public Reeprsentation and Cultural Memory. 5 Symbolic Expression and Ritual Behavior: Ernst Cassirer and Arnold Gehlen Revisited. Part IV Europe in Transition. 6 Euroskepticism, Market Europe, or a Europe of…
Solidarity as fact or norm: Social integration between system and lifeworld
Globalizing Critical Theory: Globalizing Critical Theory
Across a spectrum of academic disciplines, the topic of globalization is at the forefront of contemporary efforts to understand a dynamically changing world society. How might critical social theory respond creatively to the challenge of thinking and theorizing globalization in its full complexity? Globalizing Critical Theory collects essays by scholars at the forefront of Critical Theory as they confront this timely topic. This book offers reade…
Memory, catastrophe, destruction
For some time now, urban theorists have looked for inspiration to the pioneering metropolitan works of Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish literary critic who tragically took his own life in 1940 while attempting to flee Nazi‐occupied France. In this essay, philosopher Max Pensky examines some of the key components of Benjamin's description of modern, urban life. Specifically, he contrasts Benjamin's understanding of the modern capitalist city as …
Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations after the Iraq War
Natural History: The Life and Afterlife of a Concept in Adorno
Theodor Adorno's concept of ‘natural history’ [Naturgeschichte] was central for a number of Adorno's theoretical projects, but remains elusive. In this essay, analyse different dimensions of the concept of natural history, distinguishing amongst (a) a reflection on the normative and methodological bases of philosophical anthropology and critical social science; (b) a conception of critical memory oriented toward the preservation of the memory of …
Beyond the Message in a Bottle: The Other Critical Theory
Book reviewed in this article: Alex Demirović, Der nonkonformistische Intellektuelle. Die Entwicklung der Kritischen Theorie zur Frankfurter Schule
Cosmopolitanism and the Solidarity Problem: Habermas on National and Cultural Identities
Natural History: The Life and Afterlife of a Concept in Adorno
Theodor Adorno's concept of ‘natural history’ [Naturgeschichte] was central for a number of Adorno's theoretical projects, but remains elusive. In this essay, analyse different dimensions of the concept of natural history, distinguishing amongst (a) a reflection on the normative and methodological bases of philosophical anthropology and critical social science; (b) a conception of critical memory oriented toward the preservation of the memory of …
Cosmopolitanism and the Solidarity Problem: Habermas on National and Cultural Identities
On the Use and Abuse of Memory: Habermas, "anamnestic solidarity," and the historikerstreit
Amnesty on trial: Impunity, accountability, and the norms of international law
An emerging consensus regards domestic amnesties for international crimes as generally inconsistent with international law. This legal consensus rests on a norm against impunity: the chief role of international criminal law, and of the fledgling International Criminal Court (ICC), is to end impunity for violators of the worst of criminal acts. But the anti-impunity norm, and the anti-amnesty consensus that has arisen from it, now face serious dif…
The Ends of Solidarity: Discourse Theory in Ethics and Politics
Beyond the Message in a Bottle: The Other Critical Theory
Book reviewed in this article: Alex Demirović, Der nonkonformistische Intellektuelle. Die Entwicklung der Kritischen Theorie zur Frankfurter Schule
Natural History and Aesthetic Truth in Aesthetic Theory
Theodor W. Adorno’s claim in Aesthetic Theory that artworks have a truth content, and that this truth content in turn depends on philosophical interpretation, is among the work’s most challenging and obscure claims. This article argues that “The Idea of Natural History,” Adorno’s lecture dating to 1932, offers important resources for interpreting the claim of art’s truth content. Reading the lecture’s core idea of transience, the article proposes…
Jewishness and jurisgenesis: On Seyla Benhabib’s Exile, Statelessness and Migration
The postwar era saw a remarkable transformation of international law, from a loose arrangement of agreements designed to reduce collective action problems to a normative commitment to the inherent dignity of the individual person. Seyla Benhabib’s new book shows the extent to which this transformation was a matter of deeply personal experiences. Understanding this dialectic between the personal and the universal is crucial for understanding not j…
Memory, catastrophe, destruction
For some time now, urban theorists have looked for inspiration to the pioneering metropolitan works of Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish literary critic who tragically took his own life in 1940 while attempting to flee Nazi‐occupied France. In this essay, philosopher Max Pensky examines some of the key components of Benjamin's description of modern, urban life. Specifically, he contrasts Benjamin's understanding of the modern capitalist city as …
Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations after the Iraq War
On the Use and Abuse of Memory: Habermas, "anamnestic solidarity," and the historikerstreit
Choosing Your Mask
The Cambridge Companion to Habermas
Jurgen Habermas is unquestionably one of the foremost philosophers writing today. His notions of communicative action and rationality have exerted a profound influence within philosophy and the social sciences. This volume examines the historical and intellectual contexts out of which Habermas' work emerged, and offers an overview of his main ideas, including those in his most recent publication. Amongst the topics discussed are his relationship …
Melancholy Dialectics: Walter Benjamin and the Play of Mourning
The actuality of Adorno: Critical essays on Adorno and the postmodern
Minimal Adorno
Cosmopolitanism and the Solidarity Problem: Habermas on National and Cultural Identities
Beyond the Message in a Bottle: The Other Critical Theory
Book reviewed in this article: Alex Demirović, Der nonkonformistische Intellektuelle. Die Entwicklung der Kritischen Theorie zur Frankfurter Schule
Natural History: The Life and Afterlife of a Concept in Adorno
Theodor Adorno's concept of ‘natural history’ [Naturgeschichte] was central for a number of Adorno's theoretical projects, but remains elusive. In this essay, analyse different dimensions of the concept of natural history, distinguishing amongst (a) a reflection on the normative and methodological bases of philosophical anthropology and critical social science; (b) a conception of critical memory oriented toward the preservation of the memory of …
Globalizing Critical Theory: Globalizing Critical Theory
Across a spectrum of academic disciplines, the topic of globalization is at the forefront of contemporary efforts to understand a dynamically changing world society. How might critical social theory respond creatively to the challenge of thinking and theorizing globalization in its full complexity? Globalizing Critical Theory collects essays by scholars at the forefront of Critical Theory as they confront this timely topic. This book offers reade…
Memory, catastrophe, destruction
For some time now, urban theorists have looked for inspiration to the pioneering metropolitan works of Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish literary critic who tragically took his own life in 1940 while attempting to flee Nazi‐occupied France. In this essay, philosopher Max Pensky examines some of the key components of Benjamin's description of modern, urban life. Specifically, he contrasts Benjamin's understanding of the modern capitalist city as …
Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations after the Iraq War
Time of Transitions
Author's Foreword. Part I From Bonn to Berlin. 1 There are Alternatives!. Part II Interventions. 2 From Power Politics to Cosmopolitan Society. 3 A Sort of Logo of the Free West. 4 The Finger of Blame: The Germans and Their Memorial. Part III Public Reeprsentation and Cultural Memory. 5 Symbolic Expression and Ritual Behavior: Ernst Cassirer and Arnold Gehlen Revisited. Part IV Europe in Transition. 6 Euroskepticism, Market Europe, or a Europe of…
Solidarity as fact or norm: Social integration between system and lifeworld
Two Cheers for Cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitan Solidarity as Second‐Order Inclusion
Amnesty on trial: Impunity, accountability, and the norms of international law
An emerging consensus regards domestic amnesties for international crimes as generally inconsistent with international law. This legal consensus rests on a norm against impunity: the chief role of international criminal law, and of the fledgling International Criminal Court (ICC), is to end impunity for violators of the worst of criminal acts. But the anti-impunity norm, and the anti-amnesty consensus that has arisen from it, now face serious dif…
The Ends of Solidarity: Discourse Theory in Ethics and Politics (S U N Y Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)
The Ends of Solidarity: Discourse Theory in Ethics and Politics
Historical and intellectual contexts
It is not unusual, when reading about the lives and works of influential philosophers, to encounter the view that their work transcends the times that the authors live in; that the most influential philosophers think and write about highly abstract metaphysical or universal ideas and problems that are not specific to any particular historical or social context, and that for this reason they and their texts are “in conversation”, not with their ow…
Jürgen Habermas: Key Concepts
The significance of Kant s thought is matched by its complexity. His revolutionary ideas are systematically interconnected and he presents them using a forbidding technical vocabulary. A careful investigation of the key concepts that structure Kant s work is essential to the comprehension of his philosophical project. This book provides an accessible introduction to Kant by explaining each of the key concepts of his philosophy. The book is organi…
Two cheers for the impunity norm
International criminal law (ICL) is dedicated to the battle against impunity. However, the concept of impunity lacks clarity. Providing that clarity also reveals challenges for the current state and future prospects of the project of ICL, which this article frames in cosmopolitan terms. The ‘impunity norm’ of ICL is generally presented in a deontic form. It holds that impunity for perpetrators of international crimes is a wrong so profound that s…
New old Prague
Authoritarianism: Three Inquiries in Critical Theory
Of Straw Men and Humanitarians: On Rajan Menon’s The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention
A Companion to Adorno
Philosophy (19 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Critical Theory and Philosophy (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Art (6 works)