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Siegfried Kracauer, or, The Allegories of Improvisation

Critical Studies

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. Miguel Vedda

    1. University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

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  • Provides a novel reading of various aspects of Kracauer’s work
  • Includes a discussion of central and insufficiently studied aspects of his work, such as the sociology of intellectuals, theoretical reflections on fascism or urban vignettes
  • Places the author’s ideas in relation to their historical context and show their relevance as an instrument to analyze contemporary capitalism

Part of the book series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms (MAENMA)

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: On Kracauer’s Essays and the Contemporary Significance of Dialectics

    • Miguel Vedda
    Pages 1-21

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 221-239
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Keywords

About this book

This book analyses multiple facets of Kracauer’s work, comprehending the essayistic, narrative, philosophical, theoretical and critical writings, and putting special emphasis on some aspects: the phenomenology of metropolis, the theory of historiographic method, the reflections on the crisis of the subject and the emergence of a new subjectivity, the new forms of perception and aesthetic behaviour in late capitalism, the function of critic-intellectuals, the sociology of the middle classes, the theory of fascism, the aesthetical and sociological reflections on literary genres, the politicization of melancholy. An original feature of this book is the attention it pays to the links between Kracauer’s theoretical and critical writings and the traditions of heterodox Marxism, against a habitual tendency to obliterate the political (and emancipatory) dimension in the German author.

Reviews

Marxism is the blind spot of a significant number of recent works which, over the last couple of decades, have definitively canonized Siegfried Kracauer as one of the major representatives of 20th century critical thought. Vedda’s book is a refreshing reaction against these mutilating interpretations. He convincingly proves that Marxism is the palimpsest of the entire oeuvre of Kracauer, and the key for understanding his connections with many contemporary thinkers, from Adorno, Benjamin, Löwenthal, and Bloch to Mayer Shapiro and Aby Warburg. Captivating and remarkably erudite, this study is an important landmark in Marxist scholarship.

 

—Enzo Traverso, Cornell University, USA, and author of Left-Wing Melancholia:

Marxism, History and Memory (2017)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Miguel Vedda

About the author

Miguel Vedda is Full Professor of the chair of German Literature at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Principal Researcher of the Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Siegfried Kracauer, or, The Allegories of Improvisation

  • Book Subtitle: Critical Studies

  • Authors: Miguel Vedda

  • Series Title: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67965-1

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-67964-4Published: 14 May 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-67967-5Published: 14 May 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-67965-1Published: 13 May 2021

  • Series ISSN: 2524-7123

  • Series E-ISSN: 2524-7131

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 239

  • Topics: Political Theory, Political Sociology, Political Philosophy

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