Aesthetics and Politics (Radical Thinkers Classics) - Hardcover

Brecht, Bertolt; Bloch, Ernst; Lukács, Georg; Adorno, Theodor; Benjamin, Walter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844676641 ISBN 13: 9781844676644

Publisher: Verso Books, 2010

Synopsis

The most remarkable aesthetic debates in European cultural history, with an afterword by Fredric Jameson.

About this title

Review

This is vital reading for anyone concerned with the relationship between art and socialism. --Philosophy

About the Author

Theodor Adorno was director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt from 1956 until his death in 1969. His works include "In Search of Wagner"; "Aesthetic Theory"; "Negative Dialectics"; and (with Max Horkheimer) "Dialectic of Enlightenment" and "Towards a New Manifesto." Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and is the author of "Illuminations," "The Arcades Project," and "The Origin of German Tragic Drama." Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) is one of the most important German Marxist thinkers of the 20th century and one of the great theorists of utopia. A friend of Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht and Theodor Adorno, his works include "The Principle of Hope," "Spirit of Utopia" and "Traces." Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was a German poet, playwright, and theater director. An influential theater practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble--the post-war theater company operated by Brecht and his wife and long-time collaborator, the actress Helene Weigel--with its internationally acclaimed productions. Georg Lukacs (1885-1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. Most scholars consider him to be the founder of the tradition of Western Marxism. He contributed the ideas of reification and class consciousness to Marxist philosophy and theory, and his literary criticism was influential in thinking about realism and about the novel as a literary genre. He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture following the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Fredric Jameson is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke University. The author of numerous books, he has over the last three decades developed a richly nuanced vision of Western culture's relation to political economy. He was a recipient of the 2008 Holberg International Memorial Prize. He is the author of many books, including "Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," "The Cultural Turn, A Singular Modernity," "The Modernist Papers," "Archaeologies of the Future," "Brecht and Method, Ideologies of Theory, ""Valences of the Dialectic," "The Hegel Variations" and "Representing Capital."

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1844676641
• ISBN 13: 9781844676644
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 220