"T""racing the Aesthetic Principle in Conrad's Novels"sets out to revolutionize our reading of Joseph Conrad's works and challenge the critical heritage that accompanies them. Levin identifies the emergence of an aesthetic principle in Conrad's novels and theorizes that principle through the concept of 'the otherwise present, ' which Levin defines as that which provokes desire and perpetuates it by barring its appeasement. This book offers a detailed analysis of "Lord Jim," " Nostromo," " Under Western Eyes," " The Arrow of Gold "and" Suspense, "alongside a poststructuralist-inspired explication of Conrad's literary vision and its defining principle. This study is an important source for both the newcomers and the initiated to Conrad's oeuvre.

Tracing the Aesthetic Principle in Conrad s Novels sets out to revolutionize our reading of Joseph Conrad s works and challenge the critical heritage that accompanies them. Levin identifies the emergence of an aesthetic principle in Conrad s novels and theorizes that principle through the concept of the otherwise present, which Levin defines as that which provokes desire and perpetuates it by barring its appeasement. This book offers a detailed analysis of Lord Jim, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes, The Arrow of Gold and Suspense, alongside a poststructuralist-inspired explication of Conrad s literary vision and its defining principle. This study is an important source for both the newcomers and the initiated to Conrad s oeuvre.

Benjamin's famous "Work of Art" essay sets out his boldest thoughts--on media and on culture in general--in their most realized form, while retaining an edge that gets under the skin of everyone who reads it. In this essay the visual arts of the machine age morph into literature and theory and then back again to images, gestures, and thought.

This essay, however, is only the beginning of a vast collection of writings that the editors have assembled to demonstrate what was revolutionary about Benjamin's explorations on media. Long before Marshall McLuhan, Benjamin saw that the way a bullet rips into its victim is exactly the way a movie or pop song lodges in the soul.

This book contains the second, and most daring, of the four versions of the "Work of Art" essay--the one that addresses the utopian developments of the modern media. The collection tracks Benjamin's observations on the media as they are revealed in essays on the production and reception of art; on film, radio, and photography; and on the modern transformations of literature and painting. The volume contains some of Benjamin's best-known work alongside fascinating, little-known essays--some appearing for the first time in English. In the context of his passionate engagement with questions of aesthetics, the scope of Benjamin's media theory can be fully appreciated.

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.

Inka storage systems financed the largest prehistoric New World empire, the Inka state, which extended almost three thousand miles along the west coast of South America and into the Andean highlands. In this volume, prominent anthropologists and archaeologists explore for the first time how Inka storage was integrated into the Inka administrative system, and how Inka authorities consolidated their power by controlling access to concentrated resources. The massive wealth accumulated in Inka storehouses was legendary in sixteenth-century accounts of the Spanish invasion of the Andes. Archaeological studies reported here reveal how and why circular and rectangular Inka structures, known as qollqa, were built at high elevations where climatic conditions protected and preserved the contents. The Inkas tailored the administration of their vast economy - which was without currency - to the resources of each region and political sophistication of the local population. They filled storehouses with agricultural products, textiles and other manufactured goods, and oro from state-owned mines, through an elaborate system of taxation based on corvee labor. As organization and deployment of economic surpluses became more efficient, Inka rulers were able to tighten their control. This major contribution to Andean studies presents research from several regions and from major Inka storage archaelogical sites - Huanuco Pampa, Pumpu, Hatun Xauxa, Valle Calchaqui and Huamachuco. The discussions range from theoretical considerations of Inka political economy to excavation and analysis of individual storage structures. Inka Storage Systems is unique - focusing on storage and emphasizing archaeological data complemented by ethnohistorical interpretations.