1940s
20th century
A01=Johannes von Moltke
academic
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
american history
Author_Johannes von Moltke
authoritarian
automatic-update
caligari
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=APFA
Category=ATFA
Category=HPCF
Category=HPS
Category=QDHR
Category=QDTS
clement greenberg
contemporary philosopher
contemporary thinker
COP=United States
culture
Delivery_Pre-order
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
film making
film studies
film theory
great thinkers
hannah arendt
hitler
immigrant
immigration
intellectual
Language_English
manhattan
modern thinker
modern world
modernity
new york
PA=Temporarily unavailable
philosopher
philosophy
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
refugee
research
robert warshow
siegfried kracauer
softlaunch
theodor adorno
theorist
theory
theory of film
totalitarianism
transatlantic
united states
weimar republic
world history
Product details
- ISBN 9780520290938
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 21 Jun 2016
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
During the Weimar Republic, Siegfried Kracauer established himself as a trenchant theorist of film, culture, and modernity, and he is now considered one of the key thinkers of the twentieth century. When he arrived in Manhattan aboard a crowded refugee ship in 1941, however, he was virtually unknown in the United States and had yet to write his best-known books, From Caligari to Hitler and Theory of Film. Johannes von Moltke details the intricate ways in which the American intellectual and political context shaped Kracauer's seminal contributions to film studies and shows how, in turn, Kracauer's American writings helped shape the emergent discipline. Using archival sources and detailed readings, von Moltke asks what it means to consider Kracauer as the New York Intellectual he became in the last quarter century of his life.
Adopting a transatlantic perspective on Kracauer's work, von Moltke demonstrates how he pursued questions in conversation with contemporary critics from Theodor Adorno to Hannah Arendt, from Clement Greenberg to Robert Warshow: questions about the origins of totalitarianism and the authoritarian personality; about high and low culture; about liberalism, democracy, and what it means to be human. From these wide-flung debates, Kracauer's own voice emerges as that of an incisive cultural critic invested in a humanist understanding of the cinema.
Johannes von Moltke is Professor of Screen Arts and Cultures and Professor and Chair of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. He is the author of No Place Like Home: Locations of Heimat in German Cinema and the editor of two volumes of writings by and about Siegfried Kracauer.
