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Doctorate in Critical Theory

  • June 5th, 2021
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The Critical Theory research team offers three research lines to pursue a PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Valencia.

Possible lines of research in the Doctorate in Social Sciences UV:

  1. Line: Social pathologies of contemporary societies. This line studies the structural or systemic defects of contemporary societies, including extreme phenomena such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Critical theory helps to understand the phenomena of discrimination, such as racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, classism, etc., as moments of a pathological structure of society. It analyzes capitalism and contemporary societies in their entirety. At the same time, he studies particular phenomena in relation to social pathologies, examining also the subjects that carry them out, that is, their perpetrators. For this purpose, it makes use of the conceptual contributions of critical theory, such as alienation, contempt, exploitation, invisibility, reification...
  2. Line: Social and sociological theory. This line studies the theoretical and social premises of sociological research.. Critical theory insists on the importance of basic social theory for the generation of new knowledge. To this end, it attempts to update the contributions of classical authors and studies the contributions of contemporary authors from various critical currents. It seeks international dialogue with the Frankfurt School, French post-structuralism, Anglo-Saxon critical contributions and, above all, with the global south. It analyzes and conceptualizes contemporary social contradictions and paradoxes, also paying attention to the new field of studies on perpetration.
  3. Line: Pathologies of the reason.This line asks about the possibilities of knowledge in general and social criticism in particular. To this end, it uses sources of epistemological critique, such as the decolonial perspective or feminism. It analyzes the relationship between knowledge and power that is presented among others in processes of subjectivization, in the social macrostructure. It studies language and discourses as institutionalized forms of knowledge. Study of ideologies, populisms, pathological forms of knowledge and the relationship between capitalism and knowledge.

Full document: Doctorate in Critical Theory