Summer of Theory - History of a Rebellion, 1960-1990 - History of a Rebellion, 1960-1990

'Theory' - a magical glow has emanated from this word since the sixties. Theory was more than just a succession of ideas: it was an article of faith, a claim to truth, a lifestyle. It spread among its adherents in cheap paperbacks and triggered heated debates in seminar rooms and cafés. The Frankfurt School, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Adorno, Derrida, Foucault: these and others were the exotic schools and thinkers whose ideas were being devoured by young minds. But where did the fascination for dangerous thoughts come from?
 
In his magnificently written book, Philipp Felsch follows the hopes and dreams of a generation that entered the jungle of difficult texts. His setting is West Germany in the decades from the 1960s to the 1990s: in a world frozen in the Cold War, movement only came from big ideas. It was the time of apocalyptic master thinkers, upsetting reading experiences and glamorous incomprehensibility. As the German publisher Suhrkamp published Adorno's Minima Moralia and other High Theory works of the Frankfurt School, a small publisher in West Berlin, Merve Verlag, provided readers with a steady stream of the subversive new theory coming out of France.
 
By following the adventures of the publishers who provided the books and the reading communities that consumed and debated them, Philipp Felsch tells the remarkable story of an intellectual revolt when the German Left fell in love with Theory.

List of contents

Introduction: What Was Theory?
 
1965: The Hour of Theory
 
1. Federal Republic of Adorno
 
Reflections from Damaged Life
 
Culture After Working Hours
 
In the Literary Supermarket
 
Adorno Answers
 
Are Your Endeavours Aimed at Changing the World?
 
2. In the Suhrkamp Culture
 
New Leftists
 
He Didn't Write
 
School of Hard Books
 
Paperback Theory
 
Birth of a Genre
 
1970: Endless Discussions
 
3. Ill-made Books
 
Theoretical Practice
 
Smash Bourgeois Copyright!
 
Mondays, Fridays and Sundays
 
The Disorder of Discourse
 
4. Wolfsburg Empire
 
Proletarian Public Sphere
 
In the Land of Class Struggle
 
The Lightness of Being Communist
 
A Fateful Stroke of Luck
 
1977: Reading French in the German Autumn
 
5. (Possible) Reasons for the Happiness of Thought
 
All Kinds of Escapes
 
Intensity Is Not a Feeling
 
The Laugh of Merve
 
Vague Thinkers
 
6. The Reader as Partisan
 
The Death of the Author
 
The Pleasure of the Text
 
Children's Books
 
A Different Mode of Production
 
Lying on Water
 
7. Foucault and the Terrorists
 
A Schweppes in Paris
 
Political Tourists
 
Vermin
 
On Tunix Beach
 
1984: The End of History
 
8. Critique of Pure Text
 
The Master Thinkers
 
Adults Only
 
Sola Scriptura
 
Aesthetics of Counter-Enlightenment
 
A Little Materialism
 
9. Into the White Cube
 
The Mountain of Truth
 
Be Smart - Take Part
 
German Issues
 
The Island of Posthistoire
 
The Trouble with Duchamp
 
10. Prussianism and Spontaneism
 
War in the Time of Total Peace
 
Machiavelli in Westphalia
 
The Wild Academy
 
In Search of the Punctum
 
Jacob Taubes's Best Enemy
 
11. Disco Dispositive
 
Tyrannies of Intimacy
 
Pub Blather
 
The Art of Having a Beer
 
In the Jungle
 
Above the Clouds
 
Epilogue: After Theory?
 
Bibliography
 
Appendix: Translations of Illustrations
 
Notes
 
Index

About the author

Philipp Felsch is Professor of Cultural History at Humboldt University, Berlin.

Summary

'Theory' - a magical glow has emanated from this word since the sixties. Theory was more than just a succession of ideas: it was an article of faith, a claim to truth, a lifestyle. It spread among its adherents in cheap paperbacks and triggered heated debates in seminar rooms and cafés. The Frankfurt School, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Adorno, Derrida, Foucault: these and others were the exotic schools and thinkers whose ideas were being devoured by young minds. But where did the fascination for dangerous thoughts come from?

In his magnificently written book, Philipp Felsch follows the hopes and dreams of a generation that entered the jungle of difficult texts. His setting is West Germany in the decades from the 1960s to the 1990s: in a world frozen in the Cold War, movement only came from big ideas. It was the time of apocalyptic master thinkers, upsetting reading experiences and glamorous incomprehensibility. As the German publisher Suhrkamp published Adorno's Minima Moralia and other High Theory works of the Frankfurt School, a small publisher in West Berlin, Merve Verlag, provided readers with a steady stream of the subversive new theory coming out of France.

By following the adventures of the publishers who provided the books and the reading communities that consumed and debated them, Philipp Felsch tells the remarkable story of an intellectual revolt when the German Left fell in love with Theory.

Report

"Impassioned and full of detail, this is a fascinating snapshot of the period."
Publisher's Weekly
 
"Felsch's stance (well captured by his English translator, Tony Crawford) is that of a wry but sympathetic participant-observer. You end the book uncertain as to whether you should marvel at the grandiose pointlessness of it all, or celebrate a movement that put pure thought, accessed by careful reading and refined through intense discussions with comrades, at the very centre of life."
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Australian Book Review
 
"evocative and brilliant"
European Journal of Social Theory
 
"evocative and brilliant" European Journal of Social Theor

Product details

• Authors: Tony Crawford, Felsch, Philipp Felsch
• Assisted by: Tony Crawford (Translation), Crawford Tony (Translation)
• Publisher: Polity Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.09.2021
• EAN: 9781509539857
• ISBN: 978-1-5095-3985-7
• No. of pages: 280
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Cultural history; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Soziologie, Geschichte, Philosophie, Gesellschaftstheorie, Kritische Theorie, History, Sociology, Social Theory, Philosophy, Social & cultural history, Critical Theory, Sozial- u. Kulturgeschichte