Bücher der Reihe Kritik: German Literary Theory and Cultural Studies Series

Walter Benjamin is considered one of the most significant writers and theorists in 20th-century Western culture. The author of this work shows that Benjamin's engagement with the political cannot be understood in terms of unified concepts, but rather should be understood from his language.

This biography of Walter Benjamin provides an introduction to his thought.

Fabricating Pleasure traces the creation of a unique form of domestic culture, showing how the bourgeoisie of late-18th- and early-19th-century Germany fused consumption with high culture. Author Karin Wurst illuminates the sociohistorical context and the emergence of the modern middle class, its differentiation, and its conception of culture.

Looks at the life and writings of cultural critic Aby Warburg through the prism of Warburg's little-known political views. This work argues, based on archival research, that Warburg's work and teachings developed as a reaction to the growing anti-Semitism in Germany, which he saw as a threat to classical education and university scholarship.

This study chronicles how German nationalism developed simultaneously with the historical novel and the field of history, both at universities and in middlebrow reading material. The book examines Germany's emerging national narrative as 19th-century writers adapted it to their own visions and to changing circumstances.

The art of interpreting personal character based on facial and other physical features dates back to antiquity. About Face tells the intriguing story of how physiognomics became particularly popular during the Enlightenment, no longer as a mere parlor game but as an empirically grounded discipline.

The eight essays in this volume consider questions concerning spatial transformations in and around Weimar cinema. They analyse the periphery - the other spaces that are implicated, if not present, in the films themselves.

This collection of essays on Kafka seeks to place his writings in a very large cultural context by fusing Freudian and expressionist perspectives and incorporating more theoretical approaches, linguistic theory, Gnosticism, and aspects of Derrida, into its synthesis.