Martin Benjamin's Books

Critical Theory: The Basics

By: Martin Shuster

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Critical Theory: The Basics brings clarity to a topic that is confusingly bandied about with various meanings today in popular and academic culture. First defined by Max Horkheimer in the 1930s, “critical theory” now extends far beyond its original German context around the Frankfurt School and the emergence of Nazism. We now often speak of critical theories of race, gender, anti-colonialism, and so forth. This book introduces especially the core program of the first-generation of the Frankfurt School (including Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse), and shows how this program remains crucial to understanding the problems, ideologies, and systems of the modern world, including capitalism, racism, sexism, and the enduring problems of colonialism. It explores basic questions like: What is critical theory? What can critical theory be? What should it be? Why and how does critical theory remain vital to understanding the contemporary world, including notions of self, society, politics, art, religion, culture, race, gender, and class? With suggestions for further reading, this book is an ideal starting point for anyone seeking an accessible but robust introduction to the richness and complexity of this tradition and to its continuing importance today.

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205

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Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

1003861725

ISBN 13

9781003861720

Immanent Critiques

The Frankfurt School under Pressure

By: Martin Jay

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Immanent Critiques

The Frankfurt School under Pressure

By: Martin Jay

The Frankfurt School’s own legacy is best preserved by exercising an immanent critique of its premises and the conclusions to which they often led. By distinguishing between what is still and what is no longer alive in Critical Theory, these essays seek to demonstrate its continuing relevance in the 21st century. Fifty years after the appearance of The Dialectical Imagination, his pioneering history of the Frankfurt School, Martin Jay reflects on what may be living and dead in its legacy. Rather than treating it with filial piety as a fortress to be defended, he takes seriously its anti-systematic impulse and sensitivity to changing historical circumstances. Honouring the Frankfurt School's practice of immanent critique, he puts critical pressure on a number of its own ideas by probing their contradictory impulses. Among them are the pathologization of political deviance through stigmatizing "authoritarian personalities," the undefended theological premises of Walter Benjamin's work, and the ambivalence of its members' analyses of anti-Semitism and Zionism. Additional questions are asked about other time-honored Marxist themes: the meaning of alienation, the alleged damages of abstraction, and the advocacy of a politics based on a singular notion of the truth. Rather, however, than allowing these questions to snowball into an unwarranted repudiation of the Frankfurt School legacy as a whole, the essays also acknowledge a number of its still potent arguments. They explore its neglected, but now timely analysis of "racket society," Adorno's dialectical reading of aesthetic sublimation, and the unexpected implications of Benjamin's focus on the corpse for political theory. Jay shows that it is a still evolving theoretical tradition which offers resources for the understanding of–and perhaps even practical betterment–of our increasingly troubled world.

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241

Publisher

Verso Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1804292524

ISBN 13

9781804292525

Splinters in Your Eye

Frankfurt School Provocations

By: Martin Jay

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Splinters in Your Eye

Frankfurt School Provocations

By: Martin Jay

Although successive generations of the Frankfurt School have attempted to adapt Critical Theory to new circumstances, the work done by its founding members continues in the 21st century to unsettle conventional wisdom about culture, society and politics. Exploring unexamined episodes in the School's history and reading its work in unexpected ways, these essays provide ample evidence of the abiding relevance of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Lwenthal, and Kracauer in our troubled times. Without forcing a unified argument, they range over a wide variety of topics, from the uncertain founding of the School to its mixed reception of psychoanalysis, from Benjamin's ruminations on stamp collecting to the ironies in the reception of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, from Lwenthal's role in Weimar's Jewish Renaissance to Horkheimer's involvement in the writing of the first history of the Frankfurt School. Of special note are their responses to visual issues such as the emancipation of color in modern art, the Jewish prohibition on images, the relationship between cinema and the public sphere, and the implications of a celebrated Family of Man photographic exhibition. The collection ends with two essays tracing the still metastasizing demonization of the Frankfurt School by the so-called Alt Right as the source of "cultural Marxism" and "political correctness," which has gained alarming international resonance and led to violence by radical right-wing fanatics.

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355

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Verso Books

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ISBN 10

1788736028

ISBN 13

9781788736022

The Dialectical Imagination

A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950

By: Martin Jay

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The Dialectical Imagination

A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950

By: Martin Jay

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424

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Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520204239

ISBN 13

9780520204232

Songs of Experience

Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme

By: Martin Jay

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Songs of Experience

Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme

By: Martin Jay

Few words in both everyday parlance and theoretical discourse have been as rhapsodically defended or as fervently resisted as "experience." Yet, to date, there have been no comprehensive studies of how the concept of experience has evolved over time and why so many thinkers in so many different traditions have been compelled to understand it. Songs of Experience is a remarkable history of Western ideas about the nature of human experience written by one of our best-known intellectual historians. With its sweeping historical reach and lucid comparative analysis—qualities that have made Martin Jay's previous books so distinctive and so successful—Songs of Experience explores Western discourse from the sixteenth century to the present, asking why the concept of experience has been such a magnet for controversy. Resisting any single overarching narrative, Jay discovers themes and patterns that transcend individuals and particular schools of thought and illuminate the entire spectrum of intellectual history. As he explores the manifold contexts for understanding experience—epistemological, religious, aesthetic, political, and historical—Jay engages an exceptionally broad range of European and American traditions and thinkers from the American pragmatists and British Marxist humanists to the Frankfurt School and the French poststructuralists, and he delves into the thought of individual philosophers as well, including Montaigne, Bacon, Locke, Hume and Kant, Oakeshott, Collingwood, and Ankersmit. Provocative, engaging, erudite, this key work will be an essential source for anyone who joins the ongoing debate about the material, linguistic, cultural, and theoretical meaning of "experience" in modern cultures.

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454

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Univ of California Press

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ISBN 10

0520939794

ISBN 13

9780520939790

Paul de Man

By: Martin McQuillan

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Paul de Man

By: Martin McQuillan

Paul de Man's work is key to the American deconstruction movement and to the so-called political turn in critical theory. Seventeen years after his death, his works continue to arouse violent reactions among critics. This book explains why de Man is such an important voice, detailing his critical position, exploring his intellectual and historical contexts, tracing the influence of his work and enabling readers to undertake independent study of his criticism.

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166

Publisher

Psychology Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0415215137

ISBN 13

9780415215138

Essays from the Edge

Parerga and Paralipomena

By: Martin Jay

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Essays from the Edge

Parerga and Paralipomena

By: Martin Jay

The result is a lively, diverse offering from an extraordinary intellect. --Richard Wolin, the Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of The Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s

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281

Publisher

University of Virginia Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813931339

ISBN 13

9780813931333

Inconceivable Effects

Ethics through Twentieth-Century German Literature, Thought, and Film

By: Martin Blumenthal-Barby

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Inconceivable Effects

Ethics through Twentieth-Century German Literature, Thought, and Film

By: Martin Blumenthal-Barby

In Inconceivable Effects, Martin Blumenthal-Barby reads theoretical, literary and cinematic works that appear noteworthy for the ethical questions they raise. Via critical analysis of writers and filmmakers whose projects have changed our ways of viewing the modern world—including Hannah Arendt, Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, the directors of Germany in Autumn, and Heiner Müller—these essays furnish a cultural base for contemporary discussions of totalitarian domination, lying and politics, the relation between law and body, the relation between law and justice, the question of violence, and our ways of conceptualizing "the human." A consideration of ethics is central to the book, but ethics in a general, philosophical sense is not the primary subject here; instead, Blumenthal-Barby suggests that whatever understanding of the ethical one has is always contingent upon a particular mode of presentation (Darstellung), on particular aesthetic qualities and features of media. Whatever there is to be said about ethics, it is always bound to certain forms of saying, certain ways of telling, certain modes of narration. That modes of presentation differ across genres and media goes without saying; that such differences are intimately linked with the question of the ethical emerges with heightened urgency in this book.

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192

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801467381

ISBN 13

9780801467387

Open Wounds

Holocaust Theater and the Legacy of George Tabori

By: Martin Kagel,David Z. Saltz

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Open Wounds

Holocaust Theater and the Legacy of George Tabori

By: Martin Kagel,David Z. Saltz

This volume collects original essays on Hungarian-German playwright and screenwriter George Tabori (1914–2007) and his remarkable contributions to the stage. Tabori, a Jewish refugee and a truly transnational author, was best known for his work in New York theater that irreverently explored the Jewish experience, particularly the Holocaust. Although his illustrious career spanned a century, two continents, several languages, and a variety of literary genres, Tabori’s work has received scant attention in American letters, in spite of its significance for U.S. theater and Holocaust studies. Until Tabori, most dramas about the Holocaust were either rooted in American domestic realism, striving to create a strong empathetic connection between the audience and Holocaust victims, or featured an unembellished documentary style. Tabori staked out a third position, beyond realism and documentation. The volume brings together the voices of international scholars to provide a comprehensive introduction to Tabori’s theater as well as in-depth analyses of his work, discussing all of his major plays. Individual essays address Tabori’s postdramatic theater in relation to sacrificial ritual, performance studies, and post-humanist approaches to the contemporary stage, as well as performance aspects of his productions, questions of ethics and aesthetics raised by his theater, and his plays’ relation to Holocaust representation in popular culture.

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209

Publisher

University of Michigan Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

047212966X

ISBN 13

9780472129669

How to Measure a World?

A Philosophy of Judaism

By: Martin Shuster

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How to Measure a World?

A Philosophy of Judaism

By: Martin Shuster

What does it mean to wonder in awe or terror about the world? How do you philosophically understand Judaism? In How to Measure a World?: A Philosophy of Judaism, Martin Shuster provides answers to these questions and more. Emmanuel Levinas suggested that Judaism is best understood as an anachronism. Shuster attempts to make sense of this claim by alternatively considering questions of the inscrutability of ultimate reality, of the pain and commonness of human suffering, and of the ways in which Judaism is entangled with the world. Drawing on phenomenology and Jewish thought, Shuster offers novel readings of some of the classic figures of Jewish philosophy while inserting other voices into the tradition, from Moses Maimonides to Theodor W. Adorno to Walter Benjamin to Stanley Cavell. How to Measure a World? examines elements of the Jewish philosophical record to get at the full intellectual scope and range of Levinas's proposal. Shuster's view of anachronism thereby provokes an assessment of the world and our place in it. A particular understanding of Jewish philosophy emerges, not only through the traditions it encompasses, but also through an understanding of the relationship between humans and their world. In the end, Levinas's suggestion is examined theoretically as much as practically, revealing what's at stake for Judaism as much as for the world.

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259

Publisher

Indiana University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0253054559

ISBN 13

9780253054555

Deleuze and Film

By: David Martin-Jones

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Deleuze and Film

By: David Martin-Jones

Engages Deleuze's philosophy with a range of popular films and explores the degree to which a film's popularity impacts upon its ability to 'think' (in the manner that Deleuze described in relation to examples of the art of film in his Cinema books), and

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249

Publisher

Edinburgh University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0748650911

ISBN 13

9780748650910

Reconceptualizing Mental Illness in the Digital Age

Ghosts in the Machine

By: Elliott B. Martin, Jr.

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Reconceptualizing Mental Illness in the Digital Age

Ghosts in the Machine

By: Elliott B. Martin, Jr.

The Digital Age has changed everything. Mental illness is nothing like what it was even twenty years ago. Since the advent of the Internet, suicide rates have soared. Depression has become the single most debilitating disease in the world. The majority of people who go to their doctor, to an emergency department, and to urgent care have no discernible physical disease. Roughly half of all adults in Western countries struggle with at least one addiction. We now live in a 24/7 miasma of media bombardment, of neuro-saturation, and of mental exhaustion. Technology has obliterated the human mind’s ability to keep up, and in this brave new world it is time for an honest and forthright reassessment of both mental illness and mental wellness. This book elegantly describes how we got to this point, the culmination of different historical perspectives on mental illness, and the evolution of the digital disorders of our time. It offers a reconsideration of normal versus pathological, and the possibility and desirability of achieving mental wellness in a digital environment.

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371

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1527572722

ISBN 13

9781527572720

Genesis and Validity

The Theory and Practice of Intellectual History

By: Martin Jay

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Genesis and Validity

The Theory and Practice of Intellectual History

By: Martin Jay

The essays in this collection, by one of the most recognized figures in the field of intellectual history, touch on a wide variety of topics, ranging from the heroism of modern life to the ability of photographs to lie, and explore the fraught connection between the truth of history and the truthfulness of historians.

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312

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0812224965

ISBN 13

9780812224962

Refractions of Violence

By: Martin Jay

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Refractions of Violence

By: Martin Jay

A new collection of essays by the internationally recognized cultural critic and intellectual historian Martin Jay that revolves around the themes of violence and visuality, with essays on the Holocaust and virtual reality, religious violence, the art world, and the Unicorn Killer, among a wide range of other topics.

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Page Count

239

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136730370

ISBN 13

9781136730375

Harvard Yard

By: William Martin

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Harvard Yard

By: William Martin

Picking up where his runaway bestseller "Back Bay" left off, William Martin returns to Boston, this time bringing the history of Harvard University vibrantly to life.

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450

Publisher

Grand Central Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0446534218

ISBN 13

9780446534215

Reorienting the East

Jewish Travelers to the Medieval Muslim World

By: Martin Jacobs

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Reorienting the East

Jewish Travelers to the Medieval Muslim World

By: Martin Jacobs

Reorienting the East explores the Islamic world as it was encountered, envisioned, and elaborated by Jewish travelers from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. The first comprehensive investigation of Jewish travel writing from this era, this study engages with questions raised by postcolonial studies and contributes to the debate over the nature and history of Orientalism as defined by Edward Said. Examining two dozen Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic travel accounts from the mid-twelfth to the early sixteenth centuries, Martin Jacobs asks whether Jewish travelers shared Western perceptions of the Islamic world with their Christian counterparts. Most Jews who detailed their journeys during this period hailed from Christian lands and many sailed to the Eastern Mediterranean aboard Christian-owned vessels. Yet Jacobs finds that their descriptions of the Near East subvert or reorient a decidedly Christian vision of the region. The accounts from the crusader era, in particular, are often critical of the Christian church and present glowing portraits of Muslim-Jewish relations. By contrast, some of the later travelers discussed in the book express condescending attitudes toward Islam, Muslims, and Near Eastern Jews. Placing shifting perspectives on the Muslim world in their historical, social, and literary contexts, Jacobs interprets these texts as mirrors of changing Jewish self-perceptions. As he argues, the travel accounts echo the various ways in which premodern Jews negotiated their mingled identities, which were neither exclusively Western nor entirely Eastern.

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346

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0812290011

ISBN 13

9780812290011

Pacific Standard Time

Los Angeles Art, 1945-1980

By: Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin, Germany)

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Pacific Standard Time

Los Angeles Art, 1945-1980

By: Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin, Germany)

This volume is published for the occasion of the Getty's citywide grant initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945-1980 and accompanies the exhibition Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture 1950- 1970, held at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

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354

Publisher

Getty Publications

Published Date

ISBN 10

1606060724

ISBN 13

9781606060728

The Letters of Martin Buber

A Life of Dialogue

By: Martin Buber

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The Letters of Martin Buber

A Life of Dialogue

By: Martin Buber

The list of correspondents is dazzling: Albert Camus, Herman Hesse and Franz Kafka ... Franz Rosenweig and Bertrand Russell". -- Newsday

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748

Publisher

Syracuse University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0815604203

ISBN 13

9780815604204

Fictions of Home

Narratives of Alienation and Belonging, 1850-2000

By: Martin Mühlheim

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Fictions of Home

Narratives of Alienation and Belonging, 1850-2000

By: Martin Mühlheim

This study aims to counter right-wing discourses of belonging. It discusses key theoretical concepts for the study of home, focusing in particular on Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, and psychoanalytic contributions. The book also maintains that postmodern celebrations of nomadism and exile tend to be incapable of providing an alternative to conservative, xenophobic appropriations of home. In detailed readings of one film and six novels, a view is developed according to which home, as a spatio-temporal imaginary, is rooted in our species being, and as such constitutes the inevitable starting point for any progressive politics.

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Page Count

1222

Publisher

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag

Published Date

ISBN 10

3772000398

ISBN 13

9783772000393

Martin's Bench and Bar of Philadelphia

Together with Other Lists of Persons Appointed to Administer the Laws in the City and County of Philadelphia and the Province and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

By: John Hill Martin

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Martin's Bench and Bar of Philadelphia

Together with Other Lists of Persons Appointed to Administer the Laws in the City and County of Philadelphia and the Province and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

By: John Hill Martin

This reprint will be a welcome addition to bibliographies of Pennsylvania law. A mine of information, this book lists the holders of every public and private legal, appointed and elected office from the colonial period to 1883. More than a collection of lists, this book also contains histories of legal, governmental and political institutions and bibliographical essays about the Pennsylvania Reports and other publications. It even includes a great deal of miscellaneous information, such as a list of the portraits and busts belonging to the Law Association of Philadelphia.

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340

Publisher

The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1584776471

ISBN 13

9781584776475

Glossary Of Plant Derived Insect Deterrents

By: Martin Jacobson

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Glossary Of Plant Derived Insect Deterrents

By: Martin Jacobson

This handbook brings together in one place sources which entomologists, chemists, botanists, insect ecologists, physiologists, and pharmacologists may consult for information to supplement that reported herein on the subject of plant-derived feeding deterrents.

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Page Count

220

Publisher

CRC Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1351080725

ISBN 13

9781351080729

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