The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem

The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem

Author: Hannah Arendt

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-11-17

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0226924513

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The essence of the correspondence between Arendt and Scholem can be said to lie in three things. Above all it provides an intimate account of how two great intellectuals try to come to terms with being both German and Jewish, and how to think about Germany before, during, and after the Holocaust. They also debate the issue of what it means to be Jewish in the post-Holocaust world whether in New York or in Jerusalem. Finally, the specter of Benjamin haunts the work and in a sense the letters are as much about Benjamin as the other two questions since his life and tragic death epitomize them both. Arendt and Scholem's letters on these weighty questions are lightened by more routine exchanges: on travel itineraries, lunch or dinner parties where important people were present, and so forth. These daily details are woven throughout the correspondence and provide vivid biographical information about Arendt and Scholem that is unavailable in any other source.


Book Synopsis The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem by : Hannah Arendt

Download or read book The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem written by Hannah Arendt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-17 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essence of the correspondence between Arendt and Scholem can be said to lie in three things. Above all it provides an intimate account of how two great intellectuals try to come to terms with being both German and Jewish, and how to think about Germany before, during, and after the Holocaust. They also debate the issue of what it means to be Jewish in the post-Holocaust world whether in New York or in Jerusalem. Finally, the specter of Benjamin haunts the work and in a sense the letters are as much about Benjamin as the other two questions since his life and tragic death epitomize them both. Arendt and Scholem's letters on these weighty questions are lightened by more routine exchanges: on travel itineraries, lunch or dinner parties where important people were present, and so forth. These daily details are woven throughout the correspondence and provide vivid biographical information about Arendt and Scholem that is unavailable in any other source.

The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940

The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940

Author: Walter Benjamin

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-04-05

Total Pages: 680

ISBN-13: 022627957X

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Called “the most important critic of his time” by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin has only become more influential over the years, as his work has assumed a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art, culture, and meaning. A “natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature,” writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword to this volume; and Benjamin's correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas, while also offering an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived. Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno, and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt, Max Brod, and Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin elaborates on his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus, and expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as Marxism and French national character. Providing an indispensable tool for any scholar wrestling with Benjamin’s work, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940 is a revelatory look at the man behind much of the twentieth century’s most significant criticism.


Book Synopsis The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940 by : Walter Benjamin

Download or read book The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940 written by Walter Benjamin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-04-05 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Called “the most important critic of his time” by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin has only become more influential over the years, as his work has assumed a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art, culture, and meaning. A “natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature,” writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword to this volume; and Benjamin's correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas, while also offering an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived. Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno, and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt, Max Brod, and Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin elaborates on his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus, and expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as Marxism and French national character. Providing an indispensable tool for any scholar wrestling with Benjamin’s work, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940 is a revelatory look at the man behind much of the twentieth century’s most significant criticism.

Correspondence, 1939 - 1969

Correspondence, 1939 - 1969

Author: Theodor W. Adorno

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-05-06

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13: 1509510494

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At first glance, Theodor W. Adorno’s critical social theory and Gershom Scholem’s scholarship of Jewish mysticism could not seem farther removed from one another. To begin with, they also harbored a mutual hostility. But their first conversations in 1938 New York were the impetus for a profound intellectual friendship that lasted thirty years and produced more than 220 letters. These letters discuss the broadest range of topics in philosophy, religion, history, politics, literature, and the arts – as well as the life and the work of Adorno and Scholem’s mutual friend Walter Benjamin. Unfolding with the dramatic tension of a historic novel, the correspondence tells the story of these two intellectuals who faced tragedy, destruction, and loss, but also participated in the efforts to reestablish a just and dignified society after World War II. Scholem immigrated to Palestine before the war and developed his pioneering scholarship of Jewish mysticism before and during the problematic establishment of a Jewish state. Adorno escaped Germany to England, and then to America, returning to Germany in 1949 to participate in the efforts to rebuild and democratize German society. Despite the differences in the lifepaths and worldviews of Adorno and Scholem, their letters are evidence of mutual concern for intellectual truth and hope for a more just society in the wake of historical disaster. The letters reveal for the first time the close philosophical proximity between Adorno’s critical theory and Scholem’s scholarship of mysticism and messianism. Their correspondence touches on questions of reason and myth, progress and regression, heresy and authority, and the social dimensions of redemption. Above all, their dialogue sheds light on the power of critical, materialistic analysis of history to bring about social change and prevent repetition of the disasters of the past.


Book Synopsis Correspondence, 1939 - 1969 by : Theodor W. Adorno

Download or read book Correspondence, 1939 - 1969 written by Theodor W. Adorno and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-05-06 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At first glance, Theodor W. Adorno’s critical social theory and Gershom Scholem’s scholarship of Jewish mysticism could not seem farther removed from one another. To begin with, they also harbored a mutual hostility. But their first conversations in 1938 New York were the impetus for a profound intellectual friendship that lasted thirty years and produced more than 220 letters. These letters discuss the broadest range of topics in philosophy, religion, history, politics, literature, and the arts – as well as the life and the work of Adorno and Scholem’s mutual friend Walter Benjamin. Unfolding with the dramatic tension of a historic novel, the correspondence tells the story of these two intellectuals who faced tragedy, destruction, and loss, but also participated in the efforts to reestablish a just and dignified society after World War II. Scholem immigrated to Palestine before the war and developed his pioneering scholarship of Jewish mysticism before and during the problematic establishment of a Jewish state. Adorno escaped Germany to England, and then to America, returning to Germany in 1949 to participate in the efforts to rebuild and democratize German society. Despite the differences in the lifepaths and worldviews of Adorno and Scholem, their letters are evidence of mutual concern for intellectual truth and hope for a more just society in the wake of historical disaster. The letters reveal for the first time the close philosophical proximity between Adorno’s critical theory and Scholem’s scholarship of mysticism and messianism. Their correspondence touches on questions of reason and myth, progress and regression, heresy and authority, and the social dimensions of redemption. Above all, their dialogue sheds light on the power of critical, materialistic analysis of history to bring about social change and prevent repetition of the disasters of the past.

The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940

The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940

Author: Walter Benjamin

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 9780674174153

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The legendary correspondence between the critic Walter Benjamin and the historian Gershom Scholem bears indispensable witness to the inner lives of two remarkable and enigmatic personalities. Benjamin, acknowledged today as one of the leading literary and social critics of his day, was known during his lifetime by only a small circle of his friends and intellectual confreres. Scholem recognized the genius of his friend and mentor during their student days in Berlin, and the two began to correspond after Scholem's emigration to Palestine. Their impassioned exchange draws the reader into the very heart of their complex relationship during the anguished years from 1932 until Benjamin's death in 1940.


Book Synopsis The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940 by : Walter Benjamin

Download or read book The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940 written by Walter Benjamin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary correspondence between the critic Walter Benjamin and the historian Gershom Scholem bears indispensable witness to the inner lives of two remarkable and enigmatic personalities. Benjamin, acknowledged today as one of the leading literary and social critics of his day, was known during his lifetime by only a small circle of his friends and intellectual confreres. Scholem recognized the genius of his friend and mentor during their student days in Berlin, and the two began to correspond after Scholem's emigration to Palestine. Their impassioned exchange draws the reader into the very heart of their complex relationship during the anguished years from 1932 until Benjamin's death in 1940.

The Mathematical Imagination

The Mathematical Imagination

Author: Matthew Handelman

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0823283852

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This book offers an archeology of the undeveloped potential of mathematics for critical theory. As Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno first conceived of the critical project in the 1930s, critical theory steadfastly opposed the mathematization of thought. Mathematics flattened thought into a dangerous positivism that led reason to the barbarism of World War II. The Mathematical Imagination challenges this narrative, showing how for other German-Jewish thinkers, such as Gershom Scholem, Franz Rosenzweig, and Siegfried Kracauer, mathematics offered metaphors to negotiate the crises of modernity during the Weimar Republic. Influential theories of poetry, messianism, and cultural critique, Handelman shows, borrowed from the philosophy of mathematics, infinitesimal calculus, and geometry in order to refashion cultural and aesthetic discourse. Drawn to the austerity and muteness of mathematics, these friends and forerunners of the Frankfurt School found in mathematical approaches to negativity strategies to capture the marginalized experiences and perspectives of Jews in Germany. Their vocabulary, in which theory could be both mathematical and critical, is missing from the intellectual history of critical theory, whether in the work of second generation critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas or in contemporary critiques of technology. The Mathematical Imagination shows how Scholem, Rosenzweig, and Kracauer’s engagement with mathematics uncovers a more capacious vision of the critical project, one with tools that can help us intervene in our digital and increasingly mathematical present.


Book Synopsis The Mathematical Imagination by : Matthew Handelman

Download or read book The Mathematical Imagination written by Matthew Handelman and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an archeology of the undeveloped potential of mathematics for critical theory. As Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno first conceived of the critical project in the 1930s, critical theory steadfastly opposed the mathematization of thought. Mathematics flattened thought into a dangerous positivism that led reason to the barbarism of World War II. The Mathematical Imagination challenges this narrative, showing how for other German-Jewish thinkers, such as Gershom Scholem, Franz Rosenzweig, and Siegfried Kracauer, mathematics offered metaphors to negotiate the crises of modernity during the Weimar Republic. Influential theories of poetry, messianism, and cultural critique, Handelman shows, borrowed from the philosophy of mathematics, infinitesimal calculus, and geometry in order to refashion cultural and aesthetic discourse. Drawn to the austerity and muteness of mathematics, these friends and forerunners of the Frankfurt School found in mathematical approaches to negativity strategies to capture the marginalized experiences and perspectives of Jews in Germany. Their vocabulary, in which theory could be both mathematical and critical, is missing from the intellectual history of critical theory, whether in the work of second generation critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas or in contemporary critiques of technology. The Mathematical Imagination shows how Scholem, Rosenzweig, and Kracauer’s engagement with mathematics uncovers a more capacious vision of the critical project, one with tools that can help us intervene in our digital and increasingly mathematical present.

A Mortuary of Books

A Mortuary of Books

Author: Elisabeth Gallas

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 544

ISBN-13: 147980987X

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Winner, 2020 JDC-Herbert Katzki Award for Writing Based on Archival Material, given by the Jewish Book Council The astonishing story of the efforts of scholars and activists to rescue Jewish cultural treasures after the Holocaust In March 1946 the American Military Government for Germany established the Offenbach Archival Depot near Frankfurt to store, identify, and restore the huge quantities of Nazi-looted books, archival material, and ritual objects that Army members had found hidden in German caches. These items bore testimony to the cultural genocide that accompanied the Nazis’ systematic acts of mass murder. The depot built a short-lived lieu de memoire—a “mortuary of books,” as the later renowned historian Lucy Dawidowicz called it—with over three million books of Jewish origin coming from nineteen different European countries awaiting restitution. A Mortuary of Books tells the miraculous story of the many Jewish organizations and individuals who, after the war, sought to recover this looted cultural property and return the millions of treasured objects to their rightful owners. Some of the most outstanding Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century, including Dawidowicz, Hannah Arendt, Salo W. Baron, and Gershom Scholem, were involved in this herculean effort. This led to the creation of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Inc., an international body that acted as the Jewish trustee for heirless property in the American Zone and transferred hundreds of thousands of objects from the Depot to the new centers of Jewish life after the Holocaust. The commitment of these individuals to the restitution of cultural property revealed the importance of cultural objects as symbols of the enduring legacy of those who could not be saved. It also fostered Jewish culture and scholarly life in the postwar world.


Book Synopsis A Mortuary of Books by : Elisabeth Gallas

Download or read book A Mortuary of Books written by Elisabeth Gallas and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2020 JDC-Herbert Katzki Award for Writing Based on Archival Material, given by the Jewish Book Council The astonishing story of the efforts of scholars and activists to rescue Jewish cultural treasures after the Holocaust In March 1946 the American Military Government for Germany established the Offenbach Archival Depot near Frankfurt to store, identify, and restore the huge quantities of Nazi-looted books, archival material, and ritual objects that Army members had found hidden in German caches. These items bore testimony to the cultural genocide that accompanied the Nazis’ systematic acts of mass murder. The depot built a short-lived lieu de memoire—a “mortuary of books,” as the later renowned historian Lucy Dawidowicz called it—with over three million books of Jewish origin coming from nineteen different European countries awaiting restitution. A Mortuary of Books tells the miraculous story of the many Jewish organizations and individuals who, after the war, sought to recover this looted cultural property and return the millions of treasured objects to their rightful owners. Some of the most outstanding Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century, including Dawidowicz, Hannah Arendt, Salo W. Baron, and Gershom Scholem, were involved in this herculean effort. This led to the creation of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Inc., an international body that acted as the Jewish trustee for heirless property in the American Zone and transferred hundreds of thousands of objects from the Depot to the new centers of Jewish life after the Holocaust. The commitment of these individuals to the restitution of cultural property revealed the importance of cultural objects as symbols of the enduring legacy of those who could not be saved. It also fostered Jewish culture and scholarly life in the postwar world.

Lamentations of Youth

Lamentations of Youth

Author: Gershom Scholem

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9780674026698

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For decades, Gershom Scholem kept these diaries locked away, returning to them only to refresh his memory of past events and eloquent observations. They remained unread by others until the meticulously edited German edition of this book appeared in 2002. Lamentations of Youth gives insight into a crucial stage in Scholem's life, beginning when he was a student in Berlin during the First World War, a time of incubation and growth for his later ideas. Much of the journal writing, however, took place in Switzerland, a magnet for radical artists, socialist intellectuals, and revolutionaries fleeing war. The diaries are where Scholem forges his anarchic orthodoxy, and where he chronicles his intense relationship with Walter Benjamin. Many entries have the crisp quality of literary aphorisms crafted in the great German tradition of Kafka and Canetti. For Scholem and Benjamin, the time they spent together in Switzerland spawned an astoundingly original view of literary criticism, interpretation, and cultural transmission. More personally, the themes of friendship, love, and heartbreak that dominate these pages later reemerge in Scholem's scholarship. No longer is the inner life of the critic seen as distinct from his textual criticism--they are deeply and esoterically intertwined.


Book Synopsis Lamentations of Youth by : Gershom Scholem

Download or read book Lamentations of Youth written by Gershom Scholem and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, Gershom Scholem kept these diaries locked away, returning to them only to refresh his memory of past events and eloquent observations. They remained unread by others until the meticulously edited German edition of this book appeared in 2002. Lamentations of Youth gives insight into a crucial stage in Scholem's life, beginning when he was a student in Berlin during the First World War, a time of incubation and growth for his later ideas. Much of the journal writing, however, took place in Switzerland, a magnet for radical artists, socialist intellectuals, and revolutionaries fleeing war. The diaries are where Scholem forges his anarchic orthodoxy, and where he chronicles his intense relationship with Walter Benjamin. Many entries have the crisp quality of literary aphorisms crafted in the great German tradition of Kafka and Canetti. For Scholem and Benjamin, the time they spent together in Switzerland spawned an astoundingly original view of literary criticism, interpretation, and cultural transmission. More personally, the themes of friendship, love, and heartbreak that dominate these pages later reemerge in Scholem's scholarship. No longer is the inner life of the critic seen as distinct from his textual criticism--they are deeply and esoterically intertwined.

Unlearning with Hannah Arendt

Unlearning with Hannah Arendt

Author: Marie Luise Knott

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2015-04-14

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1590517490

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Short-listed for the Tractatus Essay Prize, an examination of the innovative strategies Arendt used to achieve intellectual freedom After observing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt articulated her controversial concept of the “banality of evil,” thereby posing one of the most chilling and divisive moral questions of the twentieth century: How can genocidal acts be carried out by non-psychopathic people? By revealing the full complexity of the trial with reasoning that defied prevailing attitudes, Arendt became the object of severe and often slanderous criticism, losing some of her closest friends as well as being labeled a “self-hating Jew.” And while her theories have continued to draw innumerable opponents, Arendt’s work remains an invaluable resource for those seeking greater insight into the more problematic aspects of human nature. Anchoring its discussion in the themes of translation, forgiveness, dramatization, and even laughter, Unlearning with Hannah Arendt explores the ways in which this iconic political theorist “unlearned” recognized trends and patterns—both philosophical and cultural—to establish a theoretical praxis all her own. Through an analysis of the social context and intellectual influences—Karl Jaspers, Walter Benjamin, and Martin Heidegger—that helped shape Arendt’s process, Knott has formed a historically engaged and incisive contribution to Arendt’s legacy.


Book Synopsis Unlearning with Hannah Arendt by : Marie Luise Knott

Download or read book Unlearning with Hannah Arendt written by Marie Luise Knott and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2015-04-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short-listed for the Tractatus Essay Prize, an examination of the innovative strategies Arendt used to achieve intellectual freedom After observing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt articulated her controversial concept of the “banality of evil,” thereby posing one of the most chilling and divisive moral questions of the twentieth century: How can genocidal acts be carried out by non-psychopathic people? By revealing the full complexity of the trial with reasoning that defied prevailing attitudes, Arendt became the object of severe and often slanderous criticism, losing some of her closest friends as well as being labeled a “self-hating Jew.” And while her theories have continued to draw innumerable opponents, Arendt’s work remains an invaluable resource for those seeking greater insight into the more problematic aspects of human nature. Anchoring its discussion in the themes of translation, forgiveness, dramatization, and even laughter, Unlearning with Hannah Arendt explores the ways in which this iconic political theorist “unlearned” recognized trends and patterns—both philosophical and cultural—to establish a theoretical praxis all her own. Through an analysis of the social context and intellectual influences—Karl Jaspers, Walter Benjamin, and Martin Heidegger—that helped shape Arendt’s process, Knott has formed a historically engaged and incisive contribution to Arendt’s legacy.

Complicated Complicity

Complicated Complicity

Author: Martina Bitunjac

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-06-21

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 3110671182

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Complicated Complicity is about the forms taken, motives and spectrum of actions of European collaboration with the Nazis. State authorities, local military organizations and individual players in different countries and areas including France, Scandinavia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Greece, Italy, Portugal and the countries of the former Yugoslavia are discussed in the context of the history of World War II, the history of occupation and everyday life and as an essential influencing factor in the Holocaust. New forms of right-wing populism, nationalism and growing intolerance of Jewish fellow citizens and minorities have made such historically sensitive studies considerably more difficult in many countries today. In this time of increasing historical revisionism in Europe, such elucidating discourse is particularly relevant.


Book Synopsis Complicated Complicity by : Martina Bitunjac

Download or read book Complicated Complicity written by Martina Bitunjac and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-06-21 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complicated Complicity is about the forms taken, motives and spectrum of actions of European collaboration with the Nazis. State authorities, local military organizations and individual players in different countries and areas including France, Scandinavia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Greece, Italy, Portugal and the countries of the former Yugoslavia are discussed in the context of the history of World War II, the history of occupation and everyday life and as an essential influencing factor in the Holocaust. New forms of right-wing populism, nationalism and growing intolerance of Jewish fellow citizens and minorities have made such historically sensitive studies considerably more difficult in many countries today. In this time of increasing historical revisionism in Europe, such elucidating discourse is particularly relevant.

Arendt and Adorno

Arendt and Adorno

Author: Lars Rensmann

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2012-07-04

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 0804782571

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Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, two of the most influential political philosophers and theorists of the twentieth century, were contemporaries with similar interests, backgrounds, and a shared experience of exile. Yet until now, no book has brought them together. In this first comparative study of their work, leading scholars discuss divergences, disclose surprising affinities, and find common ground between the two thinkers. This pioneering work recovers the relevance of Arendt and Adorno for contemporary political theory and philosophy and lays the foundation for a critical understanding of political modernity: from universalistic claims for political freedom to the abyss of genocidal politics.


Book Synopsis Arendt and Adorno by : Lars Rensmann

Download or read book Arendt and Adorno written by Lars Rensmann and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-04 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, two of the most influential political philosophers and theorists of the twentieth century, were contemporaries with similar interests, backgrounds, and a shared experience of exile. Yet until now, no book has brought them together. In this first comparative study of their work, leading scholars discuss divergences, disclose surprising affinities, and find common ground between the two thinkers. This pioneering work recovers the relevance of Arendt and Adorno for contemporary political theory and philosophy and lays the foundation for a critical understanding of political modernity: from universalistic claims for political freedom to the abyss of genocidal politics.