Abstract
We introduce the Frobenius–Schur indicator for categories with duality to give a category-theoretical understanding of various generalizations of the Frobenius–Schur theorem including that for semisimple quasi-Hopf algebras, weak Hopf C*-algebras and association schemes. Our framework also clarifies a mechanism of how the “twisted” theory arises from the ordinary case. As a demonstration, we establish twisted versions of the Frobenius–Schur theorem for various algebraic objects. We also give several applications to the quantum SL2.