Siegfried Kracauer was one of the twentieth century's most
brilliant cultural critics, a daring and prolific scholar, and an
incisive theorist of film. In this volume his finest writings on
modern society make their long-awaited appearance in English.
This book is a celebration of the masses--their tastes,
amusements, and everyday lives. Taking up themes of modernity, such
as isolation and alienation, urban culture, and the relation
between the group and the individual, Kracauer explores a
kaleidoscope of topics: shopping arcades, the cinema, bestsellers
and their readers, photography, dance, hotel lobbies, Kafka, the
Bible, and boredom. For Kracauer, the most revelatory facets of
modern life in the West lie on the surface, in the ephemeral and
the marginal. Of special fascination to him is the United States,
where he eventually settled after fleeing Germany and whose culture
he sees as defined almost exclusively by "the ostentatious display
of surface."
With these essays, written in the 1920s and early 1930s and
edited by the author in 1963, Kracauer was the first to demonstrate
that studying the everyday world of the masses can bring great
rewards. "The Mass Ornament" today remains a refreshing tribute to
popular culture, and its impressively interdisciplinary essays
continue to shed light not only on Kracauer's later work but also
on the ideas of the Frankfurt School, the genealogy of film theory
and cultural studies, Weimar cultural politics, and, not least, the
exigencies of intellectual exile.
In his introduction, Thomas Levin situates Kracauer in a
turbulent age, illuminates the forces that influenced
him--including his friendships with Walter Benjamin, TheodorAdorno,
and other Weimar intellectuals--and provides the context necessary
for understanding his ideas. Until now, Kracauer has been known
primarily for his writings on the cinema. This volume brings us the
full scope of his gifts as one of the most wide-ranging and
penetrating interpreters of modern life.
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