Description
Book SynopsisThis book brings together a broad selection of Siegfried Kracauer’s work on media and political communication, much of it previously unavailable in English. It features writings spanning more than two decades, from the 1930s to the early Cold War period.
Trade ReviewHighly recommended book. -- Anna Maria Polidori * Articles and more... *
[I] found Kracauer’s discussion of the importance of qualitative analysis to be very stimulating – and highly relevant to current challenges in assessing political dynamics. -- Mike Makin-Waite * Process North *
A landmark achievement in Kracauer scholarship, this collection presents many of the formerly neglected and lesser-known writings by one of the twentieth century’s greatest social and cultural critics. Augmenting Kracauer’s reputation as a preeminent film scholar, this book demonstrates his equally impressive gifts as an incisive interpreter of mass media. -- Noah Isenberg, editor of
Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar ViennaPainstakingly assembled and carefully annotated by Kang, Gilloch, and Abromeit, this wide-ranging collection of Siegfried Kracauer's analyses of mid-twentieth-century politics and culture reveals a hitherto ignored dimension of his remarkable legacy. Perhaps even more significantly, it still has much to teach us about the uncannily similar challenges we face today. -- Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley
This superb volume presents a richly detailed portrait of Siegfried Kracauer's diverse intellectual efforts over a period of more than two decades. The result is an illuminating collection of essays, articles, and projects—some unpublished during Kracauer's lifetime—that nicely complements existing publications in English. Not only are we presented with essays and articles on the new media, popular culture, and propaganda of Kracauer's time, but the insights gathered together in this collection will, for many readers, also shed light on contemporary society. -- Iain Macdonald, Université de Montréal
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
General Introduction
Part I: Studies of Totalitarianism, Propaganda, and the Masses (1936–1940)1. Exposé. Mass and Propaganda. An Inquiry Into Fascist Propaganda
2. Totalitarian Propaganda
3. Abridged Restricted Schema
4. Schemata
5. Disposition
Part II: The Caligari Complex (1943–1947)6. The Conquest of Europe on the Screen: The Nazi Newsreel, 1939–40
7. The Hitler Image
8. Below the Surface: Project of a Test Film
Part III: Postwar Publics (1948–1950)9. Re-education Program for the Reich
10. How and Why the Public Responds to the Propagandist
11. Popular Advertisements
12. A Duck Crosses Main Street
13. National Types as Hollywood Presents Them
14. Deluge of Pictures
Part IV: Cold War Tensions (1952–1958)15. Appeals to the Near and Middle East: Implications of the Communications Studies Along the Soviet Periphery
16. Attitudes Toward Various Communist Types in Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia
17. Proposal for a Research Project Designed to Promote the Use of Qualitative Analysis in the Social Sciences
18. The Challenge of Qualitative Content Analysis
19. On the Relation of Analysis to the Situational Factors in Case Studies
20. The Social Research Center on the Campus: Its Significance for the Social Sciences and Its Relations to the University and Society at Large
Appendix 1: T. W. Adorno, “Report on the Work ‘Totalitarian Propaganda in Germany and Italy’ by Siegfried Kracauer, 1–106”
Appendix 2: John Abromeit, “Siegfried Kracauer, and the Early Frankfurt School’s Analysis of Fascism as Right-Wing Populism”
Bibliography
Sources
Index
