On wandering: Exile, migration and other questions in critical theory

In this review article I do three things. I examine the question of whether the jewish émigrés of the Frankfurt School are best thought of as “permanent exiles” or migrants. I discuss Gordon's account of the relation between religious and profane ideas in Benjamin, Horkheimer and Adorno. Third, I try to flush out Gordon's implicit Habermasian commitments and ask to what extent these can be reconciled with his explicit Adornian conclusions.