Siegfried Kracauer E-Book

Graeme Gilloch

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Key Contemporary Thinkers
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 573

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

This major new book offers a much-needed introduction to the work of Siegfried Kracauer, one of the main intellectual figures in the orbit of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. It is part of a timely revival and reappraisal of his unique contribution to our critical understanding of modernity, the interrogation of mass culture, and the recognition of both the dynamism and diminution of human experience in the hustle and bustle of the contemporary metropolis. In stressing the extraordinary variety of Kracauer’s writings (from scholarly philosophical treatises to journalistic fragments, from comic novels to classified reports) and the dazzling diversity of his themes (from science and urban architectural visions to slapstick and dancing girls), this insightful book reveals his fundamental and formative influence upon Critical Theory and argues for his vital relevance for cultural analysis today.

Kracauer’s work is distinguished by an acute sensitivity to the ‘surface manifestations’ of popular culture and a witty, eminently readable literary style. In exploring and making accessible the work of this remarkable thinker, this book will be indispensable for scholars and students working in many disciplines and interdisciplinary fields: sociology and social theory; film, media and cultural studies; urban studies, cultural geography and architectural theory; philosophy and Critical Theory.

Leseprobe

Key Contemporary Thinkers

Jeremy Ahearne,

Michel de Certeau

Lee Braver,

Heidegger

John Burgess,

Kripke

Michael Caesar,

Umberto Eco

M. J. Cain,

Fodor

Filipe Carreira da Silva,

G. H. Mead

Rosemary Cowan,

Cornel West

George Crowder,

Isaiah Berlin

Gareth Dale,

Karl Polanyi

Colin Davis,

Levinas

Oliver Davis,

Jacques Rancière

Maximilian de Gaynesford,

John McDowell

Reidar Andreas Due,

Deleuze

Matthew Elton,

Daniel Dennett

Simon Evnine,

Donald Davidson

Chris Fleming,

René Girard

Edward Fullbrook and Kate Fullbrook,

Simone de Beauvoir

Andrew Gamble,

Hayek

Neil Gascoigne,

Richard Rorty

Nigel Gibson,

Fanon

Graeme Gilloch,

Siegfried Kracauer

Graeme Gilloch,

Walter Benjamin

Karen Green,

Dummett

Espen Hammer,

Stanley Cavell

Phillip Hansen,

Hannah Arendt

Sean Homer,

Fredric Jameson

Christina Howells,

Derrida

Fred Inglis,

Clifford Geertz

Simon Jarvis,

Adorno

Rachel Jones,

Irigaray

Sarah Kay,

Žižek

S. K. Keltner,

Kristeva

Valerie Kennedy,

Edward Said

Chandran Kukathas and Philip Pettit,

Rawls

Moya Lloyd,

Judith Butler

James McGilvray,

Chomsky

, 2nd Edition

Lois McNay,

Foucault

Philip Manning,

Erving Goffman and Modern Sociology

Dermot Moran,

Edmund Husserl

Michael Moriarty,

Roland Barthes

Marie-Eve Morin,

Jean-Luc Nancy

Stephen Morton,

Gayatri Spivak

Timothy Murphy,

Antonio Negri

Harold W. Noonan,

Frege

James O'Shea,

Wilfrid Sellars

William Outhwaite,

Habermas

, 2nd Edition

Kari Palonen,

Quentin Skinner

Herman Paul,

Hayden White

Ed Pluth,

Badiou

John Preston,

Feyerabend

Chris Rojek,

Stuart Hall

William Scheuerman,

Morgenthau

Severin Schroeder,

Wittgenstein

Susan Sellers,

Hélène Cixous

Wes Sharrock and Rupert Read,

Kuhn

David Silverman,

Harvey Sacks

Dennis Smith,

Zygmunt Bauman

James Smith,

Terry Eagleton

Nicholas H. Smith,

Charles Taylor

Felix Stalder,

Manuel Castells

Geoffrey Stokes,

Popper

Georgia Warnke,

Gadamer

James Williams,

Lyotard

Jonathan Wolff,

Robert Nozick

Christopher Zurn,

Axel Honneth

Copyright © Graeme Gilloch 2015

The right of Graeme Gilloch to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2015 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-2961-2

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-2962-9(pb)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8949-4(epub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8948-7(mobi)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gilloch, Graeme.

    Siegfried Kracauer : our companion in misfortune / Graeme Gilloch.

        pages cm

    ISBN 978-0-7456-2961-2 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-7456-2962-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)    1.  Kracauer, Siegfried, 1889-1966–Criticism and interpretation.    I.  Title.

    PT2621.R135Z67 2015

    834′.912–dc23

                                                                                                        2014022838

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

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For Peter

There are a lot of people these days who, although unaware of each other, are nevertheless linked by a common fate. … [T]hey are overcome by a profound sadness which arises from the recognition of their confinement in a particular spiritual/intellectual [geistige] situation, a sadness that ultimately overruns all layers of their being. It is this metaphysical suffering from the lack of a higher meaning in the world, a suffering due to an existence in an empty space, which makes these people companions in misfortune.

Siegfried Kracauer, ‘Those Who Wait’ (1922), in The Mass Ornament

Acknowledgements

The metaphor of the journey runs through this book. Writing it has indeed proved a long (much longer than anticipated) and sometimes daunting adventure. I am grateful to so many people who have shared the road awhile as guides, as well-wishers and, most of all, as constant companions. You have all brought me such good fortune.

My publisher, Polity Press, and, in particular John B. Thompson and Jonathan Skerrett, have been supportive throughout and I am deeply grateful for their kind help and, above all, their perseverance and patience. Thank you for standing by me and by the project.

I would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust for their kind and generous fellowship awards which enabled me to undertake archive research in Germany. I am very grateful to the Archivzentrum of the Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek (Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main) and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv (Marbach am Neckar) for permission to access and use materials in the Max Horkheimer, Leo Löwenthal and Siegfried Kracauer archives. I would like to thank the archive staff who were always most welcoming, helpful and generous with their time. In particular, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Herr Jochen Stollberg in Frankfurt and wish him every happiness in his retirement.

This book could not have come into being without the help and support of so many students, colleagues and friends along the way … indeed, students who have now become colleagues, and colleagues who have now become friends. I have benefited in myriad ways from conversations and exchanges with Ross Abbinnett, Erkan Ali, Andrew Benjamin, Matthias Benzer, Bülent Diken, Nigel Dodd, Karen Engle, Jonathan Fletcher, Adam Fish, Tara Forrest, Emma Fraser, Gunter Gassner, Stefano Giacchetti, Craig Hammond, Christian Hermansen Cordua, Jeesoon Hong, Noah Isemberg, Troels Degn Johansson, Jane Kilby, Sungdo Kim, Claus Krogholm Kristiansen, Fabio La Rocca, Dee Leahy, Changnam Lee, Esther Leslie, Jack Nye, Ulrich Oevermann, Deborah Parsons, David Pinder, Antonio Rafaele, Jiseok Ryu, Erik Steinskøg, Phillipe Simay, Greg Smith, Paul Taylor, Zoe Thompson, Imogen Tyler and Gül Yassturk. My sincere thanks to all of you.

I would like to thank two writers whose works on Kracauer remain inspirational, two wonderful scholars whose recent passing has been a huge loss to Critical Theory: David Frisby and Miriam Bratu Hansen.

The contribution of some people over the years has been particularly profound: Tim Dant, Jaeho Kang, Allen Shelton and Charles Turner. It is a privilege to know you and to work with you. Your insights and ideas have enriched everything I have written; our enduring friendships everything I have yet to write.

This book would not have been possible without Bernadette Boyle. Translator, proofreader, corrector, discussant, critic. Bricoleuse extraordinaire. For everything you have done: thank you.

And lastly, my special thanks to Thomas and Roisín for all the many wonderful distractions which you have provided over the years. You have grown up in the time it has taken me to write this book. I cannot believe how quickly the years have gone by in your joyous company.

This book is dedicated to my father, Peter, with all my love.

*****

Some of the material contained in this book has been published in earlier versions as detailed below. I am grateful to the editors and publishers for their kind permission to publish such materials in revised form.

Sections of chapter 2 were first published under the title ‘The Faces of Amsterdam: Rembrandt, Simmel and the Painting of Modern Lives’ in Episteme [journal of the Centre for Applied Cultural Studies, Korea University, Seoul], No. 4, 2010, pp. 233–56.

Some sections of chapter 4 first appeared in ‘ “Seen from the Window”: Rhythm, Improvisation and the City’, in Laura Colini and Frank Eckhardt (eds), Bauhaus and the City (Würzburg: Königshaus & Neumann, 2001), pp. 185–202.

Other sections of chapter 4 appeared as ‘Impromptus of a Great City: Siegfried Kracauer's Strassen in Berlin und anderswo’, in Tracing Modernity, ed. Mari Hvattum and Christian Hermansen (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 291–306.

Sections of chapter 5 are adapted and reprinted by permission of the publishers from ‘The Word on the Street: Charles Baudelaire, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of their Time’, in Manifestoes and Transformations in the Early Modernist City, ed. Christian Hermansen Cordua (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 59–75. Copyright © 2010

An earlier version of chapter 6 appeared as ‘Orpheus in Hollywood: Siegfried Kracauer's Offenbach Film’, in Tracing Modernity, ed. Mari Hvatttum and Christian Hermansen (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 307–23.

The first half of chapter 8 appeared as ‘Below the Surface: Anti-Semitism, Prejudice and Siegfried Kracauer's “Test Film” Project’, in New Formations, 61 (2007) pp. 149–60 [special issue on Siegfried Kracauer]. I am grateful to my co-author, Dr Jaeho Kang, of SOAS, London, for permission to revise this work for publication here.

Parts of chapter 9 were first published under the title ‘Ad Lib: Improvisation, Imagination and Enchantment in Siegfried Kracauer’, in Sociétés: Revue des Sciences Humaines et Sociales No. 110, 4 / 2010, pp. 29–46.

Sections of chapter 10 were first published in ‘Urban Optics: Film, Phantasmagoria and the City in Benjamin and Kracauer’, in New Formations, 61 (2007) pp. 115–31 [special issue on Siegfried Kracauer].

I am grateful to the Max Horkheimer (Frankfurt am Main) and Siegfried Kracauer (Marbach am Neckar) archives for kindly allowing publication of hitherto unpublished archive materials.

The author and publishers are grateful to Princeton University Press for permission to reproduce material from From Caligari to Hitler; to Oxford University Press for permission to reproduce material from Theory of Film (© 1960 by Oxford University Press, Inc. By permission of Oxford University Press, USA); and to Harvard University Press for permission to reproduce material from The Mass Ornament: Weiner Essays (Copyright © 1995 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College).

Our Companion Introduced: An Intellectual Schwejk

1    The Path to Be Followed

I imagine the critical theorist Siegfried Kracauer standing at a crossroads, the kind of junction envisaged by the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre in his study Everyday Life in the Modern World when he reflects:

We have now reached a junction, a kind of crossroads, and we could do worse than to examine the lie of the land before we proceed any further. Behind us, as we stand at their point of intersection, are the way of philosophy and the road of everyday life. They are divided by a mountain range, but the path of philosophy keeps to the heights, thus overlooking that of everyday life; ahead the track winds, barely visible, through thickets, thorn bushes and swamps. (2000: 17)

There would be those among us who, fearful of the meandering path ahead and what might be lurking unseen in its undergrowth, would turn tail and head for the security and prospects of the high ground. Others, wrinkling their noses in distaste, would seek to preserve their dignity and distance by treading with disdain as they seek to circumnavigate the difficult terrain ahead, all the while bemoaning their lot and the foolishness of their guide.

There are those rare talents who have come thus far by old smugglers' routes, and who have the arcane wisdom to find yet more long forgotten and forbidden tracks through the mire (Walter Benjamin is one such perhaps). And there are those, like Kracauer, for whom, with pipe clenched between the teeth, nothing could be more intriguing, enticing and, indeed, important than the overgrown wilderness ahead.

The concrete world of the everyday was his terrain of choice. This is not to say that he was unfamiliar with the high ground of philosophy – after all, he was Theodor W. Adorno's first unofficial tutor in Kantian thought1 – or that his works lacked philosophical themes, insights and profundity. Far from it – these are all present and correct though often in curious guise. But he was drawn unerringly to those uninviting ‘thickets, thorn bushes and swamps’ of everyday life. This is the true landscape, not only of his own thinking, but of film, his most beloved medium and the dominant motif of his later writings. ‘Landscape’, though, is perhaps not the right word here: cityscape is more appropriate. For Kracauer remains one of the most sensitive and subtle analysts of the experience and culture of metropolitan modernity – its teeming crowds and noisy traffic; its brilliant lights and sparkling surfaces; its streets and architecture; its manifold distractions and diversions; its dismal leavings and left-overs. He had an acute eye for all those seemingly insignificant and ephemeral phenomena of the city that others blithely overlook and undervalue. As a radical ‘ragpicker at daybreak’ he recognized their profound potential for the critical unmasking and debunking of prevailing capitalist power and its central mythology of rational technological progress. All such myriad and momentary figures and forms of quotidian life fascinated Kracauer and found exquisite expression in writings penned in five great cities – Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Paris, Marseilles and New York – and spanning the calamitous events and catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century.