First Letters After Exile by Thomas Mann, Hannah Arendt, Ernst Bloch, and Others

First Letters After Exile by Thomas Mann, Hannah Arendt, Ernst Bloch, and Others
Author: David Kettler
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2021-03-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1785276727

In the study of the National Socialist State and its aftermath, two unusual aspects continue to occupy historians and social science commentators. First, a factor important enough to enter into the very definition of totalitarianism is the thoroughgoing mobilization, coercive if needed, of the population of writers, teachers, professors journalists and other intellectual workers, securing cooperation – or at the least passive concurrence – in the mass-inculcation of the population in the destructive Fascist ideology. Second is the central place of dissident members of these populations in the exile. Since webs of communications with others, the majority of whom had remained in Germany, had constituted their own memberships in the populations at issue, the question of their roles in the post-war era depended importantly on the ways and means by which they restored – or refused to restore – communications with those who had remained.

Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno
Author: Detlev Claussen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0674029593

This book gives us our first clear look at how the man and his moment met to create “critical theory.” An intimate picture of the quintessential twentieth-century transatlantic intellectual, the book is also a window on the cultural ferment of Adorno’s day—and its ongoing importance in our own.

Benjamin and Brecht

Benjamin and Brecht
Author: Erdmut Wizisla
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2016-08-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1784781134

A fascinating account of the friendship between two of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century 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.

Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin
Author: Bernd Witte
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 1997
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780814320181

Expanded and revised, as well as translated, from the 1985 German edition, details the thought of Benjamin (1892-1940), an all-around European intellectual most active between the wars. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Escape to Life

Escape to Life
Author: Sigrid Weigel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2012-05-29
Genre:
ISBN: 9783112204160

After 1933, New York City gave shelter to many leading German and German-Jewish intellectuals. This compendium, adopting the title of a volume published by Klaus and Erika Mann in 1939, explores the impact the US, and NYC in particular, had on these authors as well as the influence they in turn exerted on US intellectual life. Moreover, it addresses the transformations that took place in the exiled intellectuals thinking when it was translated intoEnglish and addressed to an American audience. Among the individuals presented in this volume, are such prominent names as T.W. Adorno, H. Arendt, W. Benjamin, E. Bloch, B. Brecht, S. Kracauer, the Mann family, S. Morgenstern, and E. Panofsky. The authors of the essays in this compendium were free to choose the angleand aspect deemed best to illuminate the given intellectual s work. Acclaimed NYC photographer Fred Stein, himself a German exile, produced numerous portraits of exiled intellectuals and artists. A selection of these compelling portraits is reproduced together in this book for the first time."

The Filthy Truth

The Filthy Truth
Author: Andrew Dice Clay
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2014-11-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476734755

From Andrew Dice Clay, the “Undisputed Heavyweight Comedy King,” comes the unapologetic and uncensored autobiography fans have been waiting for. Andrew Dice Clay’s raw and uncensored stand-up comedy has shocked and entertained audiences for decades and continues to do so to this day. When he released his debut album, Dice, in 1989, the parental advisory label simply read “Warning: This album is offensive.” His material stretched the boundaries of decency and good taste to their breaking point, and in turn he became the biggest stand-up comic in the world. But Dice’s meteoric rise and spectacular fame brought on a furious backlash from the media and critics. By the mid-nineties, though still playing to packed audiences, the turmoil in his personal life, plus attacks from every activist group imaginable, led him to make the decision to step out of the spotlight and put the focus on raising his boys. The Diceman was knocked down, but not out. Taking inspiration from what Frank Sinatra once told him—“You work for your fans, not the media. The media gets their tickets for free”—Dice has bounced back with critically acclaimed roles and is once again playing to sold-out audiences. Filled with no-holds-barred humor and honesty, The Filthy Truth sets the record straight and gives fans plenty of never-before-shared stories from his career and his friendships with Howard Stern, Sam Kinison, Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, Axl Rose, and countless others.

Fire Alarm

Fire Alarm
Author: Michael Lowy
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1784786438

This illuminating study of Benjamin’s final essay helps unlock the mystery of this great philosopher Revolutionary critic of the philosophy of progress, nostalgic of the past yet dreaming of the future, romantic partisan of materialism—Walter Benjamin is in every sense of the word an “unclassifiable” philosopher. His essay “On the Concept of History” was written in a state of urgency, as he attempted to escape the Gestapo in 1940, before finally committing suicide. In this scrupulous, clear and fascinating examination of this essay, Michael Löwy argues that it remains one of the most important philosophical and political writings of the twentieth century. Looking in detail at Benjamin’s celebrated but often mysterious text, and restoring the philosophical, theological and political context, Löwy highlights the complex relationship between redemption and revolution in Benjamin’s philosophy of history.

Real Presences

Real Presences
Author: George Steiner
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2013-04-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1480411841

Renowned scholar George Steiner explores the power and presence of the unseen in art. “It takes someone of [his] stature to tackle this theme head-on” (The New York Times). There is a philosophical school of thought that believes the presence of God in art, literature, and music—in creativity in general—is a vacant metaphor, an eroded figure of speech, a ghost in humanity’s common parlance. George Steiner posits the opposite—that any coherent understanding of language and art, any capacity to communicate meaning and feeling, is premised on God. In doing so, he argues against the kind of criticism that obscures, instead of elucidates, meaning. From the power of language to vital philosophical tenets, Real Presences examines the role of meaning and of the spiritual in art throughout history and across cultures.