Gilloch Graeme - Siegfried Kracauer: our companion in misfortune

1. Jeremy Ahearne, Michel de Certeau
2. Lee Braver, Heidegger
3. John Burgess, Kripke
4. Michael Caesar, Umberto Eco
5. M. J. Cain, Fodor
6. Filipe Carreira da Silva, G. H. Mead
7. Rosemary Cowan, Cornel West
8. George Crowder, Isaiah Berlin
9. Gareth Dale, Karl Polanyi
10. Colin Davis, Levinas
11. Oliver Davis, Jacques Rancire
12. Maximilian de Gaynesford, John McDowell
13. Reidar Andreas Due, Deleuze
14. Matthew Elton, Daniel Dennett
15. Simon Evnine, Donald Davidson
16. Chris Fleming, Ren Girard
17. Edward Fullbrook and Kate Fullbrook, Simone de Beauvoir
18. Andrew Gamble, Hayek
19. Neil Gascoigne, Richard Rorty
20. Nigel Gibson, Fanon
21. Graeme Gilloch, Siegfried Kracauer
22. Graeme Gilloch, Walter Benjamin
23. Karen Green, Dummett
24. Espen Hammer, Stanley Cavell
25. Phillip Hansen, Hannah Arendt
26. Sean Homer, Fredric Jameson
27. Christina Howells, Derrida
28. Fred Inglis, Clifford Geertz
29. Simon Jarvis, Adorno
30. Rachel Jones, Irigaray
31. Sarah Kay, iek
32. S. K. Keltner, Kristeva
33. Valerie Kennedy, Edward Said
34. Chandran Kukathas and Philip Pettit, Rawls
35. Moya Lloyd, Judith Butler
36. James McGilvray, Chomsky, 2nd Edition
37. Lois McNay, Foucault
38. Philip Manning, Erving Goffman and Modern Sociology
39. Dermot Moran, Edmund Husserl
40. Michael Moriarty, Roland Barthes
41. Marie-Eve Morin, Jean-Luc Nancy
42. Stephen Morton, Gayatri Spivak
43. Timothy Murphy, Antonio Negri
44. Harold W. Noonan, Frege
45. James O'Shea, Wilfrid Sellars
46. William Outhwaite, Habermas, 2nd Edition
47. Kari Palonen, Quentin Skinner
48. Herman Paul, Hayden White
49. Ed Pluth, Badiou
50. John Preston, Feyerabend
51. Chris Rojek, Stuart Hall
52. William Scheuerman, Morgenthau
53. Severin Schroeder, Wittgenstein
54. Susan Sellers, Hlne Cixous
55. Wes Sharrock and Rupert Read, Kuhn
56. David Silverman, Harvey Sacks
57. Dennis Smith, Zygmunt Bauman
58. James Smith, Terry Eagleton
59. Nicholas H. Smith, Charles Taylor
60. Felix Stalder, Manuel Castells
61. Geoffrey Stokes, Popper
62. Georgia Warnke, Gadamer
63. James Williams, Lyotard
64. Jonathan Wolff, Robert Nozick
65. Christopher Zurn, Axel Honneth

Copyright Graeme Gilloch 2015

The right of Graeme Gilloch to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2015 by Polity Press

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-2961-2

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-2962-9(pb)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8949-4(epub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8948-7(mobi)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gilloch, Graeme.

Siegfried Kracauer : our companion in misfortune / Graeme Gilloch.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-7456-2961-2 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-7456-2962-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Kracauer, Siegfried, 1889-1966Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.

PT2621.R135Z67 2015

834.912dc23

2014022838

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For Peter

There are a lot of people these days who, although unaware of each other, are nevertheless linked by a common fate. [T]hey are overcome by a profound sadness which arises from the recognition of their confinement in a particular spiritual/intellectual [geistige] situation, a sadness that ultimately overruns all layers of their being. It is this metaphysical suffering from the lack of a higher meaning in the world, a suffering due to an existence in an empty space, which makes these people companions in misfortune.

Siegfried Kracauer, Those Who Wait (1922), in The Mass Ornament

The metaphor of the journey runs through this book. Writing it has indeed proved a long (much longer than anticipated) and sometimes daunting adventure. I am grateful to so many people who have shared the road awhile as guides, as well-wishers and, most of all, as constant companions. You have all brought me such good fortune.

My publisher, Polity Press, and, in particular John B. Thompson and Jonathan Skerrett, have been supportive throughout and I am deeply grateful for their kind help and, above all, their perseverance and patience. Thank you for standing by me and by the project.

I would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust for their kind and generous fellowship awards which enabled me to undertake archive research in Germany. I am very grateful to the Archivzentrum of the Stadt- und Universittsbibliothek (Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universitt, Frankfurt am Main) and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv (Marbach am Neckar) for permission to access and use materials in the Max Horkheimer, Leo Lwenthal and Siegfried Kracauer archives. I would like to thank the archive staff who were always most welcoming, helpful and generous with their time. In particular, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Herr Jochen Stollberg in Frankfurt and wish him every happiness in his retirement.

This book could not have come into being without the help and support of so many students, colleagues and friends along the way indeed, students who have now become colleagues, and colleagues who have now become friends. I have benefited in myriad ways from conversations and exchanges with Ross Abbinnett, Erkan Ali, Andrew Benjamin, Matthias Benzer, Blent Diken, Nigel Dodd, Karen Engle, Jonathan Fletcher, Adam Fish, Tara Forrest, Emma Fraser, Gunter Gassner, Stefano Giacchetti, Craig Hammond, Christian Hermansen Cordua, Jeesoon Hong, Noah Isemberg, Troels Degn Johansson, Jane Kilby, Sungdo Kim, Claus Krogholm Kristiansen, Fabio La Rocca, Dee Leahy, Changnam Lee, Esther Leslie, Jack Nye, Ulrich Oevermann, Deborah Parsons, David Pinder, Antonio Rafaele, Jiseok Ryu, Erik Steinskg, Phillipe Simay, Greg Smith, Paul Taylor, Zoe Thompson, Imogen Tyler and Gl Yassturk. My sincere thanks to all of you.