Weimar Thought: A Contested Legacy - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691135118 ISBN 13: 9780691135113

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

A comprehensive look at the intellectual and cultural innovations of the Weimar period

During its short lifespan, the Weimar Republic (1918–33) witnessed an unprecedented flowering of achievements in many areas, including psychology, political theory, physics, philosophy, literary and cultural criticism, and the arts. Leading intellectuals, scholars, and critics—such as Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, and Martin Heidegger—emerged during this time to become the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century. Even today, the Weimar era remains a vital resource for new intellectual movements. In this incomparable collection, Weimar Thought presents both the specialist and the general reader a comprehensive guide and unified portrait of the most important innovators, themes, and trends of this fascinating period.

The book is divided into four thematic sections: law, politics, and society; philosophy, theology, and science; aesthetics, literature, and film; and general cultural and social themes of the Weimar period. The volume brings together established and emerging scholars from a remarkable array of fields, and each individual essay serves as an overview for a particular discipline while offering distinctive critical engagement with relevant problems and debates.

Whether used as an introductory companion or advanced scholarly resource, Weimar Thought provides insight into the rich developments behind the intellectual foundations of modernity.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Peter E. Gordon is the Amabel B. James Professor of History at Harvard University. His books include Continental Divide and Rosenzweig and Heidegger. John P. McCormick is professor of political science at the University of Chicago. His books include Machiavellian Democracy and Weber, Habermas, and Transformations of the European State.

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"This is the first work in a generation that presents a comprehensive overview of Weimar culture with all its complexity and contradictions. It successfully shows continuities and discontinuities with the past, and tensions that resist reduction. The book's reach--from theology to the biological sciences, and literary criticism to legal theory--goes far beyond any other volume I am aware of on the same subject."--Peter Carl Caldwell, Rice University

"In the annals of cultural history, the Weimar Republic was an ideational crucible that bears comparison only with classical Athens and Renaissance Florence. In many respects, as a site of modernity, its achievements remain unsurpassed. Weimar Thought revisits this legacy in ways that are fresh, rich, thought provoking, and subtle. It is destined to become the standard work on the Weimar experience for years to come."--Richard Wolin, author of Heidegger's Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse

"This collection provides readers with a clear introduction to the riches of intellectual life in Weimar Germany and contextualizes many of the trends and innovations that took place there. Essential for anyone interested in the philosophical, theological, historical, political, legal, aesthetic, and scientific movements of Weimar Germany, this book will have a wide audience."--Leora Batnitzky, Princeton University

"The years of the short-lived Weimar Republic witnessed a remarkable burgeoning of intellectual and cultural activity. Incorporating recent theoretical and methodological currents, and more recent advances in empirical scholarship, this timely volume brings together outstanding scholars of the field and synthesizes this crucial moment in modern culture."--Warren Breckman, University of Pennsylvania

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Weimar Thought

A Contested Legacy

By Peter E. Gordon, John P. McCormick

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-13511-3

Contents

Introduction: Weimar Thought: Continuity and Crisis Peter E. Gordon and 
John P. McCormick..........................................................
1
Part I: Law, Politics, Society.............................................
1 Weimar Sociology David Kettler and Colin Loader.........................
15
2 Weimar Psychology: Holistic Visions and Trained Intuition Mitchell G. 
Ash........................................................................
35
3 Legal Theory and the Weimar Crisis of Law and Social Change John P. 
McCormick..................................................................
55
4 The Legacy of Max Weber in Weimar Political and Social Theory Dana 
Villa......................................................................
73
Part II: Philosophy, Theology, Science.....................................
5 Kulturphilosophie in Weimar Modernism John Michael Krois................
101
6 Weimar Philosophy and the Fate of Neo-Kantianism Frederick Beiser.......
115
7 Weimar Philosophy and the Crisis of Historical Thinking Charles 
Bambach....................................................................
133
8 Weimar Theology: From Historicism to Crisis Peter E. Gordon.............
150
9 Method, Moment, and Crisis in Weimar Science Cathryn Carson.............
179
Part III: Aesthetics, Literature, Film.....................................
10 Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, and Weimar Criticism Michael 
Jennings...................................................................
203
11 Writers and Politics in the Weimar Republic Karin Gunnemann............
220
12 Aesthetic Fundamentalism in Weimar Poetry: Stefan George and his 
Circle, 1918–1933 Martin A. Ruehl.........................................
240
13 Weimar Film Theory Sabine Hake.........................................
273
14 The Politics of Art and Architecture at the Bauhaus, 1919–1933 John V. 
Maciuika...................................................................
291
15 Aby Warburg and the Secularization of the Image Michael P. Steinberg...
316
Part IV: Themes of an Epoch................................................
16 Eastern Wisdom in an Era of Western Despair: Orientalism in 1920s 
Central Europe Susanne Marchand...........................................
341
17 Weimar Femininity: Within and Beyond the Law Tracie Matysik............
361
18 The Weimar Left: Theory and Practice Martin Jay........................
377
19 The Aftermath: Reflections on the Culture and Ideology of National 
Socialism Anson Rabinbach.................................................
394
Weimar Thought: A Chronology...............................................
407
Contributors...............................................................
417
Index......................................................................
423

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Weimar Sociology

David Kettler and Colin Loader

Although it would take an ironist with the genius of Georg Simmel to do justiceto the complex of competing teachings and practices that comprised Weimarsociology, it was nonetheless a bounded field, and even a distinctive disciplinein formation. Simmel himself could not have written such an account of thediscipline, since he had died before the end of the Great War. But he is neverthelessa significant presence in the story that follows here. Like his contemporaryMax Weber, who also did not survive beyond the initial months of the WeimarRepublic, Simmel helped to set an agenda for the generation that followed. Inthe embattled condition of sociology in the universities, moreover, their reputationsamong a wider public also provided an internal password and externallegitimation for a largely self-selected and widely distrusted circle of young outsideraspirants to university careers. Together Simmel and Weber bequeathed toWeimar sociologists a legacy to be both explored and contested as they sought torealize Nietzsche's well-known injunction to become what they were.

We speak of irony, because most contemporaries questioned whether sociologywas more than a label and because the books by sociologists that wereadmired were more likely to be taken as exercises in high journalism than scholarlyworks, let alone sociological "classics." Although institutionalization of thediscipline had in fact begun, its struggle for widespread acceptance was difficult,partly because of its identification with republican constitutional institutions.This overlapping of theoretical, institutional and political competition is an importantpart of our story. For these reasons, after examining the legacy of Simmeland Weber, we turn to Karl Mannheim, the thinker who wrote perhaps the mostdiscussed of such books, but who also most significantly engaged the work ofthe earlier masters and thereby played a noteworthy role in the emerging institutionalizationof Weimar sociology and its relationship to political citizenship.

To understand Mannheim's significance for Weimar sociology, one must locatethe field within both its academic and political contexts. The strong identificationof the German university establishment with the imperial state beforethe war has been well documented. There was little challenge within academiato the belief that the state provided a spiritual unity for the nation, and thus washierarchically above the fragmented, interest-oriented sphere of civil society.The first generation of authors whose work became canonical for German sociologychallenged the elevated standing of the state without great success, andthey could not displace the image of society—and sociology—as a dangerouslydisruptive realm. This perception was heightened by the very important circumstancethat Simmel, Weber, and the others seriously engaged the new, sophisticated,university-trained generation of intellectual Marxists, some of whomeven received their patronage. Their academic opponents maintained that sociologyfostered narrowly limited standpoints—such as mechanistic positivismor radical socialism—divorced from the higher unity of traditional disciplines.Sociology was accordingly never recognized as a university discipline beforethe war, and the imperial "sociologists" who found university positions held appointmentsin disciplines such as political economy or philosophy. Even then,their "sociological" writings, although they were in fact neither positivistic norsocialistic, received only marginal scientific recognition within the universities.

The demise of the imperial political establishment in the trauma of the warand the subsequent declaration of the republic were disorienting for many citizensof the new republic, including its most prominent...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691135118
• ISBN 13: 9780691135113
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 464
• Herausgeber: Gordon Peter E., Mccormick John P.
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar