Benjamin and Brecht
Benjamin and Brecht

Author: Erdmut Wizisla

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2016-08-09

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1784781142

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Germany in the mid 1920s, a place and time of looming turmoil, brought together Walter Benjamin-acclaimed critic and extraordinary literary theorist-and Bertolt Brecht, one of the twentieth century's most influential playwrights. It was a friendship that would shape their writing for the rest of their lives. In this groundbreaking work, Erdmut Wizisla explores what this relationship meant for them personally and professionally, as well as the effect it had on those around them. From the first meeting between Benjamin and Brecht to their experiences in exile, these eventful lives are illuminated by personal correspondence, journal entries and private miscellany-including previously unpublished materials-detailing the friends' electric discussions of their collaboration. Wizisla delves into the archives of other luminaries in the distinguished constellation of writers and artists in Weimar Germany, which included Margarete Steffin, Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch and Hannah Arendt. Wizisla's account of this friendship opens a window on nearly two decades of European intellectual life.

Rethinking Vulnerability and Exclusion
Rethinking Vulnerability and Exclusion

Author: Blanca Rodríguez Lopez

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 3030605191

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume offers novel and provocative insights into vulnerability and exclusion, two concepts crucial for the understanding of contemporary political agency. In twelve critical essays, the contributors explore the dense theoretical content, complex histories and conceptual intersection of vulnerability and exclusion. A rich array of topics are covered as the volume searches for the ways that vulnerable and excluded groups relate to each other, where the boundary between the excluded and the included arises, and what the stakes of ‘invulnerability’ might be. Drawing on the works of Hegel (via Judith Butler), Helmuth Plessner and Hannah Arendt to situate the project in a solid historical context, the volume likewise tackles pressing and contemporary issues such as the state of human capital under neoliberalism, the flawed nature of democracy itself, and the vulnerability inherent in extreme precarity, extreme violence, and interdependence. The contributions come from philosophers with a range of backgrounds in social philosophy and critical social sciences, who use related conceptual tools to tackle the political challenges of the 21st century. Together, they present a ground-breaking overview of the main challenges which social exclusion presents to contemporary global societies.

Die Pluralektik Der Romantik
Die Pluralektik Der Romantik

Author: Rüdiger Görner

Publisher: Böhlau Verlag Wien

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9783205785286

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In fünfzehn Kapiteln fragt diese Studie nach im wesentlichen literarischen und musikalischen Erscheinungsformen einer in der Romantik maßgeblich entwickelten poetischen Denkweise, die hier als eine pluralektische vorgestellt wird. Im Romantischen kristallisiere sich die 'Lektüre des Heterogenen', wie Novalis notierte. Er war es auch, der eine 'Theorie der Berührung' und des Übergangs entwerfen wollte. Noch für die in der Forschung vergleichsweise weniger beachtete Spätromantik, der im dritten Teil dieses Buches besondere Aufmerksamkeit zuteil wird, blieb dieser Ansatz verbindlich. Der unverwechselbare Beitrag der Romantik zur Ideengeschichte, so die Hauptthese dieser Arbeit, liegt in ihrer den dialektischen Schematismus entgrenzenden Pluralektik, die sich mit mythologischer Motivik verband, im Roman exponierte und in der poetischen Musik selbst besang.

Critique and Praxis
Critique and Praxis

Author: Bernard E. Harcourt

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2020-08-11

Total Pages: 730

ISBN-13: 0231551452

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Critical philosophy has always challenged the division between theory and practice. At its best, it aims to turn contemplation into emancipation, seeking to transform society in pursuit of equality, autonomy, and human flourishing. Yet today’s critical theory often seems to engage only in critique. These times of crisis demand more. Bernard E. Harcourt challenges us to move beyond decades of philosophical detours and to harness critical thought to the need for action. In a time of increasing awareness of economic and social inequality, Harcourt calls on us to make society more equal and just. Only critical theory can guide us toward a more self-reflexive pursuit of justice. Charting a vision for political action and social transformation, Harcourt argues that instead of posing the question, “What is to be done?” we must now turn it back onto ourselves and ask, and answer, “What more am I to do?” Critique and Praxis advocates for a new path forward that constantly challenges each and every one of us to ask what more we can do to realize a society based on equality and justice. Joining his decades of activism, social-justice litigation, and political engagement with his years of critical theory and philosophical work, Harcourt has written a magnum opus.

Crisis and Critique
Crisis and Critique

Author: Rodrigo Cordero

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-15

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1317622510

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Fragility is a condition that inhabits the foundations of social life. It remains mostly unnoticed until something breaks and dislocates the sense of completion. In such moments of rupture, the social world reveals the stuff of which it is made and how it actually works; it opens itself to question. Based on this claim, this book reconsiders the place of the notions of crisis and critique as fundamental means to grasp the fragile condition of the social and challenges the normalization and dissolution of these ‘concepts’ in contemporary social theory. It draws on fundamental insights from Hegel, Marx, and Adorno as to recover the importance of the critique of concepts for the critique of society, and engages in a series of studies on the work of Habermas, Koselleck, Arendt, and Foucault as to consider anew the relationship of crisis and critique as immanent to the political and economic forms of modernity. Moving from crisis to critique and from critique to crisis, the book shows that fragility is a price to be paid for accepting the relational constitution of the social world as a human domain without secure foundations, but also for wishing to break free from all attempts at giving closure to social life as an identity without question. This book will engage students of sociology, political theory and social philosophy alike.

The European Avant-Garde – A Hundred Years Later
The European Avant-Garde – A Hundred Years Later

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2024-01-08

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9004685871

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The title of this book, The European Avant-Garde – A Hundred Years Later, implies the European avant-garde took place a century ago, that it is a thing of the past. However, it does not aim to consolidate this position, but to question it. It addresses temporality as the central dimension related to the notion of the avant-garde. The book brings forth original revisions of the theories of the avant-garde, the works of the avant-garde, the idea of the avant-garde as being the vanguard, the leading force of change. It addresses the returning of the avant-garde during the twentieth century and today.

Crisis and Critique: Philosophical Analysis and Current Events
Crisis and Critique: Philosophical Analysis and Current Events

Author: Anne Siegetsleitner

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-06-08

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 3110702258

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Contemporary deep-reaching changes – whether in financial or real economy, in Europe’s political conditions, in the context of scientific theories, in the field of global (environmental) security, or gender relations – are also a challenge to philosophy. The volume comprises cutting-edge scholarly articles from renowned philosophers with various geographical backgrounds and from different philosophical strands. Next to investigating general questions as to the relation of philosophy and critique (What is philosophical critique and which philosophical concepts of critique are of importance today? Where do we need it most? Where are its limits?), the articles focus on issues like theories of democracy and modes of election; the roles of emotions in the political realm; challenges from a widespread discontent in society to politics and science; changes to social identities and different theoretical approaches to social identity formation. The book is indispensable for all who are interested in what contemporary philosophy has to say on crucial issues of our time.

Under Construction
Under Construction

Author: Vanessa Müller

Publisher: Walther Konig Verlag

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Museums, galleries, foundations, collectors, artists, viewers--how do they all come together? How is that changing? This collection of essays and some photographs from a Cologne working group called European Kunsthalle tackles the fundamental issues facing new initiatives and institutions for contemporary art. It is divided into five topics: The Problem of Location, The Process of Societal Transformation, Cultural Economies, Curatorial Concepts, and, most ambitiously of all, The Way in Which the Art System Operates. Articles and discussion transcripts include "The Crisis of the Audience," "The Cultural Politics of Institutions," "Smuggling: A Curatorial Model," "The Power and Powerlessness of the Private Collector" and Liam Gillick's "Revised Construction of One."