Are the arguments of the Frankfurt School still relevant? Modern Culture and Critical Theory investigates this question in the context of important issues in contemporary cultural politics: neoconservatism and new social movements, discontents with modernity and debates on postmodernism, the political hegemony of Ronald Reagan, and the cultural hegemony of structuralism and poststructuralism. Russell Berman thoughtfully explores the theories of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Lyotard, and Foucault and their relevance to both historical and contemporary issues in literature, politics, and the arts.

Close to the beginning of Death in Venice, Thomas Mann sets up a relationship between aesthetic production and social context that bears strongly on the parameters of twentieth-century cultural life. After introducing his central figure, the fictive writer Aschenbach, Mann goes on to offer some exposition which, as always with Mann, is much more than exposition, since it draws attention to one of the central philosophical questions of the text: “It was a spring afternoon in that year of grace 19--, (...) when Europe sat upon the anxious seat beneath a menace that hung over its head for months. Aschenbach had sought the open soon after tea. (shrink)

ExcerptThe goal of war is victory, which means that one’s opponent should lose. Part of war is the victor’s imposition of his will on the opponent, compelled to face the experience of defeat and its consequences. Despite the platitude that history is written by the victors, the defeated party too has a role to play, since it cannot escape the cruel reality of loss. Defeat is part of war, but the defeated may respond to the loss in different ways, with (...) important consequences for their futures. (shrink)

The study considers development and use of verb/predicate chaining constructions by Hebrew speakers from early childhood to adolescence, based on analysis of authentic conversational and narrative corpora. Three types of such constructions are considered, ordered hierarchically by stage of acquisition: (1) monoclausal extended predicates consisting of a verb (modal, aspectual, or evaluative) marked for tense or mood and followed by one or more complements in the infinitive – e.g., yaxol la-asot ‘can, is able to-do’; (2) coreferential interclausal predicate chaining; and (...) (3) mature discursively-motivated topic-chaining. Relevant typological features of Modern Hebrew are reviewed to explain the lack of canonic clause-chaining construction in the language (e.g. the paucity of non-finite constructions in everyday usage, lack of an uninflected basic form of verbs, lack of auxiliary verbs expressing categories of aspect and voice, and monolexemic verb-internal complexity). Monoclausal verb-chaining emerges early in the speech of toddlers in interaction with their caretakers, whereas predicate chaining by coordination across clauses occurs only later, and chunking of such constructions at the service of discourse connectivity is a late-developing device. Nonfinite subordination is an advanced form of clause-combining, in contrast to straightforward subordination with the multifunctional subordinator še’that’. The conclusion is that, unlike the obligatorily fused monoclausal “extended predicates”, bi- and multi-clausal predicate chaining represents an optional rhetorical choice on the part of a given speaker-writer in a particular communicative context. (shrink)

ExcerptAll rational liberal philosophic positions have lost their significance and power. One may deplore this but I for one cannot bring myself to clinging to philosophic positions which have been shown to be inadequate. Leo Strauss, “Existentialism”1The Supreme Court decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration's signature legislation on health care, attracted exceptional public attention, and rightly so. Health is a vital concern, and the topic is charged with acerbic party politics. More importantly, the terms (...) of the debate give evidence of a widespread awareness, across the political spectrum, that…. (shrink)

Title: Good-bye Samizdat: Twenty Years of Czechoslovak Underground WritingPublisher: Northwestern University PressISBN: 0810110105Author: Marketa Goetz-Stankiewicz Title: Traditions and Present Problems of Czech Political Culture: Czech Philosophical Studies IPublisher: Paideia PressISBN: 1565180569Author: Miloslav Bednar and Michal Vejrazka.

ExcerptProfound change in society may involve shifting control of political power, the character of economic systems, or access to resources, but it can also have to do with the structures of meaning we bundle together in various understandings of culture. This issue of Telos looks at the explosive forces located specifically in the intangible dimensions of culture and how they may play out in revolutionary or counter-revolutionary processes. No process has been more disruptive of inherited traditions and stable structures than (...) globalization, the spread of the dynamic economy of capitalism coupled with liberal democracy. In a bold account, Jörg Friedrichs…. (shrink)

A study probing the ambiguities of German nationhood. Berman takes a theoretical perspective of cultural studies, exploring such themes as: the constitution of nationhood; what holds a citizenry together; and history's role in providing a framework for current identities and institutions.