Critical Realism: History, Photography, and the Work of Siegfried Kracauer (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)

Dagmar Barnouw

ISBN 10: 0801847540 / ISBN 13: 9780801847547

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0801847540I4N00

Synopsis:

A respected journalist and film critic for "Frankfurt Zeitung" during the Weimar period, Siegfried Kracauer worked with a more comprehensive concept of cultural modernity than did his friends Bloch, Adorno and Benjamin. Sensitive to the postwar experience of rapid technological advances and profound cultural transformation, he emphasized the contemporary significance of the documentary imagimation. Though he acknowledged that reality is a construction, its modern pluralism suggested to him modalities of objectivity rather than despair of it. In "Critical Realism" Dagmar Barnouw explores the connections that Kracauer stated in his last book, "History", between the representational modes of photography and historiography, both of them characteristically composite and unstable. Drawing on recent developments in the history and theory of photography and historiography, she argues the contemporaneity of Kracauer's thought to late 20th century cultural modernity.

About the Author: Dagmar Barnouw is professor of German and comparative literature at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Her books include 'Weimar Intellectuals and the Threat of Modernity' and 'Hannah Arendt and the German-Jewish Experience', the latter available from Johns Hopkins. 'Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society.' Stephen G. Nichols, Gerald Prince, and Wendy Steiner, Series Editors.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Critical Realism: History, Photography, and ...
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication Date: 1994
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket