Description
Book SynopsisDuring the Weimar Republic, Siegfried Kracauer established himself as a trenchant theorist of film, culture, and modernity, and he is considered one of the key thinkers of the twentieth century. The author details the intricate ways in which the American intellectual and political context shaped Kracauer's seminal contributions to film studies.
Trade Review"Von Moltke places Kracauer in dialogue with other exiles—such as Hannah Arendt and theorists of the Frankfurt School—and with New York intellectuals such as Robert Warshow to shed light on Kracauer’s fundamental humanism. Clearly written, accessible to a wide readership, and including a comprehensive bibliography, this book provides an excellent overview of Kracauer’s thought and contributions to the development of humanistic inquiry." * CHOICE *
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The Curious Humanist: Siegfried Kracauer in America constitutes an important step in the exploration of the relations between intellectual development and migration. It constitutes an important addition to the scholarship of Kracauer and the American intellectual sphere at midcentury." * Film Quarterly *
"[Moltke] argues in defense of Kracauer’s writing in America and in English against the mild skepticism it met with from those who found him a better writer in Europe and in German. Setting up this resistance to the “classic figure of the intellectual in exile” (6), he sets out to show how adeptly Kracauer found his feet with a new audience on a new stage." * Monatshefte *
