ROMS 6350

Images and History: Siegfried Kracauer

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024.

The aim of this course is to investigate the relationship between history and images, by considering, the work of an outstanding representative of twentieth-century critical theory.  Siegfried Kracauer left a rich body of works spanning from the sociology of mass culture to film criticism and the philosophy of history.  This seminar will analuze his theory of images by following his intellectual trajectory from Europe to the United States.  We will read his early essays on photography an reification, as well as his well-known works on film theory and history (From Caligari to Hitler, Theory of Film; and History: The Last Things Before the Last).  Thus, we will inscribe Kracauer into his historical and intellectual context, shaped by other thinkersof images such as Th. W. Adorno, W. Benjamin, E. Panofsky, and M. Schapiro.

When Offered Spring.

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