This book is concerned with the notion of the "stranger" -the foreigner, outsider, or alien in a country and society not their own- as well as the notion of strangeness within the self -a person's deep sense of being, as distinct from outside appearance and their conscious idea of self. Kristeva begins with the personal and moves outward by examining world literature and philosophy. She discusses the foreigner in Greek tragedy, in the Bible, and in the literature of the Middle (...) Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the twentieth century. She discusses the legal status of foreigners throughout history, gaining perspective on our own civilization. Her insights into the problems of nationality, particularly in France are more timely and relevant in an increasingly integrated and fractious world. (shrink)

Instead of an overture : no heirs -- The house in Schöne Aussicht : a Frankfurt childhood around 1910 -- From Teddie Wiesengrund to Dr. Wiesengrund-Adorno -- Adorno as "non-identical" man -- Transitions -- Bertolt Brecht : "to those who come after us" -- Theodor W. Adorno : "out of the firing-line" -- Hanns Eisler, the non-identical brother -- Fritz Lang, the American friend -- Frankfurt transfer -- Adorno as "identical" man -- The palimpsest of life.

A comprehensive biography which covers Adorno's life, work and times: from childhood, through to his student years, his years in emigration, his return to post-war Germany, his time in Frankfurt, his role as a public intellectual, and his ...

Looks at the life and career of the the German philosopher who is credited as the developer of critical theory.

Over the past 25 years, Jürgen Habermas has presented what is arguably the most coherent and wide-ranging defence of the project of European unification and of parallel developments towards a politically integrated world society. In developing his key concepts of the transnationalisation of democracy and the constitutionalisation of international law, Habermas offers the main players in the struggles over the fate of the European Union a way out of the current economic and political crisis, should they choose to follow it. (...) In the title essay Habermas addresses the challenges and threats posed by the current banking and public debt crisis in the Eurozone for European unification. He is harshly critical of the incrementalist, technocratic policies advocated by the German government in particular, which are being imposed at the expense of the populations of the economically weaker, crisis-stricken countries and are undermining solidarity between the member states. He argues that only if the technocratic approach is replaced by a deeper democratization of the European institutions can the European Union fulfil its promise as a model for how rampant market capitalism can once again be brought under political control at the supranational level. This volume reflects the impressive scope of Habermas?s recent writings on European themes, including theoretical treatments of the complex legal and political issues at stake, interventions on current affairs, and reflections on the lives and works of major European philosophers and intellectuals. Together the essays provide eloquent testimony to the enduring relevance of the work of one of the most influential and far-sighted public intellectuals in the world today, and are essential reading for all philosophers, legal scholars and social scientists interested in European and global issues. (shrink)

ExcerptMisunderstandings are the medium for communicating the incommunicable. Theodor W. Adorno, “A Portrait of Walter Benjamin”You can hear the terror in the words. If you can't hear it, you cannot understand the words. The history of the critical response to Adorno can be read as a history of misunderstandings. “The whole is the false.”1 Who can understand this if he doesn't know Hegel's philosophy? Adorno formulated this aphorism in Minima Moralia in German even though he had been living in America (...) for some years. But he did not write this sentence for an American or…. (shrink)

Written after his return to Germany in 1949, the articles, essays, and radio talks included in this volume speak to the pressing political, cultural, and ...

The author, a noted literary critic, presents a selection of his thought on Balzac, Valery, Dickens, Goethe, Heine, Hoelderlin, lyric poetry, realism, the essay and the contemporary novel.

Adorno in America eloquently and persuasively argues for a more complicated, more intimate relationship between Adorno and American society than has ever been ...