Aesthetics and Politics

Aesthetics and Politics

4.11 of 5 stars 4.11  ·  rating details  ·  534 ratings  ·  12 reviews
No other country and no other period has produced a tradition of major aesthetic debate to compare with that which unfolded in German culture from the 1930s to the 1950s. In Aesthetics and Politics the key texts of the great Marxist controversies over literature and art during these years are assembled in a single volume. They do not form a disparate collection but a conti...more
Paperback, 220 pages
Published January 17th 2007 by Verso (first published 1977)
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Anton
I keep going back to what you said about how, "Lukac's argument that there may never have been such a thing as an Expressionist writer but only Expressionist theory" and I feel that he does acknowledge that literary history recognizes this notion of an expressionist writer and says, "since our dispute is concerned with the evaluation of individual writers, it is not of paramount importance that for us to resolve this problem (29)." He continues by not necessarily challenging their existence, but...more
Liam
I don't know, man. I bought this guy in a little bookstore in Georgetown when I was twenty and wanted to understand it a lot better than I did. After going off and getting to know these guys better individually - making friends with Lukács's 'Narrate or Describe,' getting hold of Benamin's 'Illuminations' in particular - the book suddenly makes sense as the only, the obvious way to introduce folk to the Frankfurt School debates, but that's only after the introduction has been made. Maybe that wa...more
David
Still surprisingly apt, even with so much time that has passed. This is a well-constructed collection of letter and papers on the role of art and its interaction with political thought/action. If you think art matters, but sometimes have a hard time articulating how or why, this book provides some nice theoretical exploration of just those issues.

Special appreciation must be given to the written introductions to each exchange, establishing the stakes and particular points of disagreement. Fredri...more
Dont
Like many of the reviewers on here, I have always found this book extremely useful in how it establishes the terms of debates around Marxist aesthetics for key European critics. This reading, however, I did something different from how I've approached the book in the past. Eschewing the lovely Germans and their feistiness, I opted instead to read Jameson's introductory notes as one continuous essay. This helped to foreground a few very important distinctions that often get missed, particularly b...more
matt

This is my third time actually going through this text. I borrowed it on curiosity from a friend of mine and tried to give it a good going-over. I think i understood what I was reading well enough but the aracana and the historical jargon was a little distancing. I find a lot of marxist theory can be like that, frustratingly so.

I'd like to learn it more, be more conversant in it, my sympathies are definitely on that side of the spectrum- at least, in the realm of politics and history. I'm not s...more
Michael
Aug 07, 2007 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: writers
if i ran a creative writing grad school, i'd make every first-year read this book. i felt better about america for a second when i found not one but two copies at the barnes and noble in the leafy, sun-dappled arboretum.

this book collects definitive essays by german-speaking literary critics of the mid-twentieth century. they all lived through the nazi disaster, and had try to understand it culturally while not betraying their love for the art and literature of their country. furthermore, many o...more
Hao Guang
If you think Marxism and art have nothing in common save propaganda posters, you're probably not going to want to read this book anyway. It's dense, and pitched as a battle amongst those modern Marxist aesthetes who shaped the debates on art as a political medium. Don't expect to find anything like consensus here - although Adorno seems to be the last word, it really is Benjamin whose thoughts seem most beautiful, lucid and free of intellectualism - in other words, most like an artist himself.
Shawn
Jun 24, 2010 Shawn rated it 5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Shawn by: Dr. Chowdhury
Read this for my Marxist Cultural Theory course. It is an amazing text, and a wonderful introduction to the writings of the Frankfurt School.
meeners
a really neat format - two critical essays/reviews are paired in dialogue with each other, with each dialogue framed by a general intro to put things in context. teases out resonances and nuances you might not necessarily get when reading each essay in isolation. i wish people would do this more often!
Nicole ( Colie )
I'm auditing a class on Modernism, and have been incredibly intimidated by the isms and the ations, but this book has been a balm--it's extremely well laid out.
Elsie
This is useful, but why does art HAVE to be the political avant-garde? Anyway, Brecht and Bloch more than Lukacs and Adorno. Brecht more than Bloch.
Patrick
amazing that this book is in print again. buy it NOW if you want academic street cred.
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Aesthetics and Politics: Debates Between Bloch, Lukacs, Brecht, Benjamin, Adorno (Paperback)
Aesthetics and Politics (Hardcover)
Aesthetics and Politics (Hardcover)
Aesthetics and Politics: Debates between Bloch, Lukacs, Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno
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Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II. Although less well known among anglophone philosophers than his contemporary Hans-Georg Gadamer, Adorno had even greater influence on scholars and intellectuals in postwar Germany. In the 1960s he was the most prominent challenger to both Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science a...more
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