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New German Critique IL Number54 Fall 1991 new german critique IL Number54 Fall 1991 SPECIAL ISSUE ON SIEGFRIED KRACAUER Leo Lowenthal As I Remember Friedel MarkM. Anderson SiegfriedKracauer and Meyer Schapiro: A Friendship AnthonyVidler Agoraphobia: Spatial Estrangementin Simmel and Kracauer MiriamHansen Kracauer's Early Writingson Film and Mass Culture KarstenWitte "Light Sorrow": SiegfriedKracauer as LiteraryCritic GertrudKoch Exile, Memory, and Image in Kracauer's Conception of History Heide Schliipmann The Subject of Survival: On Kracauer's Theoryof Film PatricePetro Kracauer's Epistemological Shift Inka Miilder-Bach History as Autobiography:The Last Things Before the Last TheodorW. Adorno The Curious Realist: On SiegfriedKracauer Leo Lowenthal The Adorno Prize Address ThomasY Levin A Kracauer Bibliography NEW GERMAN an interdisciplinaryjournal of german studies CRITIQUE SpecialEditor for this issue: Mark M. Anderson Editors:David Bathrick(Ithaca), Helen Fehervary(Columbus), Miriarn Hansen (Chicago), AndreasHuyssen (New York), Anson Rabinbach (New York), Jack Zipes (Minneapolis). ContributingEditors: Leslie Adelson (Columbus), Geoff Eley (Ann Arbor), Ferenc Feher (New York),Agnes Heller (New York),Peter U. Hohendahl (Ithaca),Douglas Kellner (Austin),Eberhard Kn6dler-Bunte (Berlin), Sara Lennox (Amherst),Andrei Markovits (Cambridge),Biddy Martin (Ithaca), Rainer Nigele (Baltimore),Eric Rentschler (Irvine),Henry Schmidt (Columbus), James Steakley (Madison). AssistantEditors: Ned Brinkley(Ithaca), and KizerWalker (Ithaca). Publishedthree times a yearby TELOS PRESS, 431 E. 12thSt., New York,NY 10009. 1 NewGerman Critique No. 54 correspondsto Vol. 18,No. 3. New GermanCritique Inc. 1991.All rightsreserved. New GermanCritique is a non-profit,educational organiza- tionsupported by the Departmentof GermanStudies of CornellUniversity. All editorialcorrespondence should be addressedto: NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE, Departmentof GermanStudies, 183 GoldwinSmith Hall, CornellUniversity, Ithaca, New York 14853. The annual subscriptionrate is $22.00 personal;$50.00 institutions.All foreignsub- scribers15% extra. Back issues are availableat $8.50 copyfor individuals and $17.00 a copy for institutions.For subscriptionsand back issues,write to: NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE, Telos PressLtd., 431 East 12thStreet, New York,NY 10009. Articlesappearing in thisjournal are annotatedand indexedin HIistoricalAbstracts and AmericanIHistory and Life. Note to Contributors:Manuscripts should be preparedin accordancewith the Mod- ern LanguageAssociation Style Sheet, but should continueto includeendnotes and not a listof the bibliography.Manuscripts should also be sent on IBM-compatible disksin WordPerfect,ASCII or WORDSTAR format. NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE Number 54 Fall 1991 SPECIAL ISSUE ON SIEGFRIED KRACAUER Tableof Contents Introduction .....................................................................................3 MarkM. Andersonand AndreasHuyssen As I Remem ber Friedel .................................................................5 LeoLowenthal SiegfriedKracauer and MeyerSchapiro: A Friendship.................. 19 MarkM. Anderson Agoraphobia:Spatial Estrangement in GeorgSimmel and SiegfriedKracauer ......................................... 31 AnthonyVidler DecentricPerspectives: Kracauer'sEarly Writings on Filmand Mass Culture................. 47 MiriamHansen "LightSorrow": Siegfried Kracauer as LiteraryCritic ....................... 77 KarstenWitte "Not yetaccepted anywhere": Exile, Memory, and Image in Kracauer'sConception of History...........................95 GertrudKoch The Subjectof Survival: On Kracauer'sTheory ofFilm ...................... 111 HeideSchlipmann Kracauer'sEpistemological Shift ................................................ 127 PatricePetro Historyas Autobiography:The LastThings Before the Last ........... 139 InkaMiilder-Bach The CuriousRealist: On SiegfriedKracauer ............................... 159 TheodorW Adorno Addressupon Acceptingthe TheodorW. AdornoPrize on 1 October1989.......................... 179 LeoLowenthal The English-LanguageReception of Kracauer'sWork: A Bibliography................................................................... 183 ThomasY Levin Introduction Mark M. Anderson Andreas Huyssen In 1989 the DeutschesLiteraturarchiv and theSchiller National Mu- seum in Marbacham Neckarorganized a documentaryexhibition for the hundredthanniversary of the birthof SiegfriedKracauer, one of theleading intellectual and literaryfigures in WeimarGermany during the 1920s and the authorof importantfilm studies in Americanexile afterthe war. Followingits inaugurationin the bucolic settingof the MarbachArchive (where Kracauer's NachlaJf is held),the exhibition trave- led to Frankfurt,Kracauer's native city and residenceuntil 1930, and thento Berlin,where he livedand workeduntil 1933. The exhibitionwas scheduledto be dismantled,but at thelast minute the present authors persuadedthe Archiveto extendKracauer's symbolic journey to Co- lumbia Universityin New York,where Kracauerfound refugefrom NationalSocialism in 1941 and wherehe wrotehis twoepoch-making studies, FromCaligari to Hitler:A PsychologicalHistory of theGerman Film (1947) and Theoryof Film: TheRedemption of Physical Reality (1960). Kracauerworked at Columbiain variouscapacities in the 1950s,fre- quentingits academic and social eventsuntil his death in 1966; its campus,we felt,should be thesite of the Marbach exhibition as wellas an academicsymposium on hiswork. Enthusiasm on bothsides of the Atlanticwas immediate,and both projectswere realized in March 1990.With the magnanimous support of the Schiller Museum in Mar- bach and theGoethe House in New York,the documentary exhibition was put on displayin the Rotundaof the Low Library.And withthe equally magnanimouscontributions of the German Academic Ex- changeService and theMax Kade Foundation,Deutsches Haus hosted 3 _I-i?i:I;-i!li-:i~i?i~ie--liiPqgss iii-:i::::: ::'::':::-:i~iME-:-i.::!i::i- MS- ---Iii:i----I--?-i'-Now- ......... ... ... ...............................wz Ad:,--:-:: --:i:-iiiii.... SiegfriedKracauer in 1930. 4 Introduction a symposiumentitled "Siegfried Kracauer: The Criticin Exile" that broughttogether leading specialistsin Europe and the UnitedStates fortwo days of spiritedpublic debate. The editorswould liketo thank all thoseindividuals and institutionswithout whose help thistribute to Kracauerwould not have been possible,especially Friedrich Pfifflin and IngridBelke (Marbach am Neckar),Peter Seel (Goethe House, New York),Wedigo de Vivancoand HeidrunSuhr (German Academic ExchangeService, New York),Erich Markel (Max Kade Foundation), and Sarah Weiner(Columbia University). Almostall of the articlesin the presentissue ofNew German Critique were firstpresented at the Columbia symposium,including Leo Lowenthal'smoving address, "As I RememberFriedel," which he deliveredto a packed and wildlyappreciative audience at Deutsches Haus. None ofthese pieces has appearedin Englishpreviously, and all can claim to breaknew groundin a numberof differentfields. Taken as a whole,they cover virtually all periodsand subjectsin Kracauer's wide-rangingcareer, from his earlyarchitectural studies and essayson mass cultureto his literarycriticism, film theory, and philosophyof history.With the notableexception of an essayby MartinJay,' the is- sue thus representsthe firstcomprehensive view in Englishof Kra- cauer'swork - one that,with translations of his earlyGerman texts in the offing,the editorscan onlyhope wil be followedby others. Becausethis issue has botha criticaland a commemorativefunction, theeditors have decided to includeTheodor Adorno's essay "The Curi- ous Realist:On SiegfriedKracauer," originally written in 1964 to com- memoratehis friend'sseventy-fifth birthday, as wellas Leo Lowenthal's acceptancespeech for the Theodor W. Adorno Prize of the Cityof Frankfurt,delivered on 1 October1989; both appear for the first time in Englishhere. Finally, the editors would like to extendthe symbolic sym- metryof these various tributes by dedicating this issue to our friendLeo Lowenthalas a belatedbut heartfeltgift for his ninetiethbirthday. 1. "The ExtraterritorialLife of SiegfriedKracauer," Salmagundi31-32 (Fall 1975-Win- ter 1976). As I RememberFriedel* Leo Lowenthal In 1965 Adorno publishedan essayin honor of SiegfriedKracauer under the title"Der wunderlicheRealist"; the translation"The Curi- ous Realist"perhaps does not renderall of the Germanconnotations. It is slightlyironic - as some of you may know - that Kracauer did not particularlylike this essay. As I standbefore you, I feeloddly un- real relatingto you mymemories of a man who was one of myoldest intimatefriends: while you come togetherhere to explore"objective- ly,"as itwere, some of his intellectualachievements, I primarilythink of him as partof a circleof more or less close friendswith whom I livedthrough the 20thcentury and withwhom I maintaineda contin- uous personalrelationship from my earlyadulthood until his death. It is not thefirst time that I have been called upon, as a survivor,to speak about some of my contemporaries,be it Adorno, Benjamin, Horkheimer,Marcuse, Bloch, or Lukaics,and everytime I have had theuncanny feeling that I was actingas thehistorian of myown histo- ry.I have to guardagainst the narcissisticimpulse to speak about my- selfwhile speaking about theothers - a double bind whichis hardto avoid - and I apologize beforehandif the "I" seemsto loom too large in whatI intendto relateto you. In an interviewabout our circle,later named the FrankfurtSchool, I once said we did not expectthis
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