Von der formalen Soziologie zur formalen Literatursoziologie: Georg Lukács

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 546-566
Author(s):  
Christine Magerski
Keyword(s):  
Formal Method ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
History Of ◽  
Georg Lukács

Abstract The paper reconstructs a crucial moment in the history of literary studies: the transference of formal sociology, as developed by Georg Simmel around 1900, into literary studies by his pupil, the young Georg Lukács. First, formal sociology will be explained in order to outline the ways in which Lukács adapts it. Then the formal method Lukács developed will be illustrated using the drama as an example. Finally, the paper will analyze Caroline Levine’s highly acclaimed study Forms (2015) in the context of the history of the formal method outlined, and briefly discuss the impasse in which this method currently finds itself.

The Narrative, Its Components and Its ‘Novelisation’

2020 ◽  
pp. 152-188
Author(s):  
Marlé Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Repeated Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Battle Scenes ◽  
Georg Lukács

This chapter represents a narratological breakdown of the tale. Drawing on the theory of Seymour Chatman, Mikhail Bakhtin and Georg Lukács, I discuss the tale and its relationship to the ʿUdhrī love tale, the popular epic and the novel in terms of its discourse, setting, characters and events. I argue that the tale has a plot with a ‘homophonic’ texture, whereby a ‘melody’ of singular events (such as the abduction, torture and rescue of Laylā) overlays a ‘drone’ of repeated events (namely battle scenes). I conclude with a comparison of the tale with its twentieth-century novelistic adaptation and a discussion of what the comparison reveals about the pre-history of the Arabic novel.

Counterfactual Literary Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-112
Author(s):  
Nasser Mufti
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Counterfactual Theory ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukács

The occasion for this collection of responses to Telling It Like It Wasn't is a conference titled “Novel Theory.” Given this conjuncture, it seems only obvious to pose the question: What does a counterfactual theory of the novel look like? Of course, there is no single theory of the novel, but there is a book and a thinker most closely associated with the phrase, “theory of the novel,” and that is Georg Lukács. And while Theory of the Novel is the obvious text to revisit to counterfactually historicize and/or theorize, it seems more worthwhile for the history of Europe's counterfactual historical imagination to turn to Lukács's other great text, one that features somewhat prominently in Gallagher's book—namely, The Historical Novel.

Interpret or Describe?

2016 ◽  
Vol 135 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cannon Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Literary Studies ◽  
Technical Language ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Georg Lukács

In “Narrate or Describe?” (1936), Georg Lukács codified the aesthetic superiority of narration to description. Current debates around descriptive approaches in literary studies reprise this binary in a critical register, valorizing interpretation over description (or, less frequently, vice versa). Beginning with a reconsideration of Lukács’s essay, I propose the inevitable interdependence of interpretation and description. Brief readings of technical language in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) and intertextuality in Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? (2012) exemplify that interdependence.

Simmel, Georg (1858–1918)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Micajah Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Georg Lukács

A foundational figure in sociology and social theory, Georg Simmel developed a methodology for analyzing modernity by tracing Capitalism’s disorienting effects on social relations, aesthetics, perception and marginal minutiae, influencing Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), Georg Lukács (1885–1971) and others. Born in Berlin, Simmel is best remembered for his important 1903 essay, ‘Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben’ (‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’), which explores the non-committal, ‘blasé’ postures that city-dwellers adopt to cope with their bewildering urban environments.

Rechter und linker Antidemokratismus im 20. Jahrhundert – Die Paradigmen Heidegger und Lukács

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-62
Author(s):  
Harald Seubert
Keyword(s):  
Heart Surgery ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Open Heart Surgery ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Tolerance Of Ambiguity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Right ◽  
Georg Lukács

The tendency in the history of ideas in the 20th century, which has been succinctly described as the „betrayal of the intellectuals“ (J. Benda), causes philosophy to tip over into ideology. The resulting anti-democratism is exemplified on the political ‚right‘ by Martin Heidegger and on the ‚left‘ by Georg Lukács. Thus, according to the diagnosis of the essay, in the spirit of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, a tendency to fundamentally negating extremes in democracy emerges. Then it is shown (II.) how Heidegger increasingly develops the phenomenological version of everyday existence in the „Man“ into a fighting concept against the deliberative public. This tendency culminates in Heidegger’s ‚Rectorate Speech‘, it also shows a continuity that is by no means only reflected in the ‚Schwarze Heften‘, but also in the large manuscripts on the History of Being (Contributions to Philosophy). In the second main section, with a view to Georg Lukács (III.), it is shown how an avant-garde interweaving of ethics and aesthetics, inspired by Max Weber and the George Kreis and vital in its verve, can be transformed into a realization of philosophy in the tactics of revolution. While Heidegger’s type is that of an anti-democratism that keeps away from the ideologues of nationalism, Lukács shows the tragic sample of self-submission to the twists and turns of communist Stalinist ideologies. Finally (IV.), a method is discussed how to distinguish the undeniable contributions of both authors to the philosophical self-understanding of modernity from its ideological muddling: an open-heart surgery, which requires judgement and „tolerance of ambiguity“ in order not to end up in the stereotypical illusory alternative of a „primacy of democracy over philosophy“ (R. Rorty).

From the History of Soviet Philosophy: Lukács - Vygotsky - Ilyenkov

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 176-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Levant
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Soviet Philosophy ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Soviet Marxism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Georg Lukács

AbstractThis review-essay explores the subterranean tradition of ‘creative Soviet Marxism’1 through a recent book by the Russian philosopher Sergey Mareev, From the History of Soviet Philosophy: Lukács - Vygotsky - Ilyenkov (2008). It provides a brief overview of the history of Soviet philosophy so as to orient the reader to a set of debates that continue to be largely unexplored in the Western-Marxist tradition. Mareev offers a new account of the development of Soviet philosophy that not only explodes the myth that Soviet philosophy was simply state-sanctioned dogma, but also reinterprets the relationship between the key creative theorists so as to offer a new way of understanding its development that challenges several key-aspects of the dominant Western scholarship on this subject. He argues that alongside official Marxist philosophy in the Soviet Union - the crude materialism of Diamat and Istmat - there existed another line, which counterposed the central rôle of social activity in the development of human consciousness. He traces this line of anti-positivist theory from V.I. Lenin through Georg Lukács and Lev Vygotsky to Evald Ilyenkov - a pivotal figure in the ‘Marxian renaissance’2 of the 1960s, but who ‘has to this day remained a Soviet phenomenon without much international influence’.3 Specifically, Mareev disputes the rôle of A.M. Deborin as a precursor of the Ilyenkov school, and instead introduces Georg Lukács - a figure primarily recognised in the West as one of the founders of Western Marxism - into the line of development of creative Soviet Marxism. Furthermore, he reconsiders the rôle of V.I. Lenin and G.V. Plekhanov - the so-called father of Russian social democracy - in the development of Soviet philosophy. In the process, the author provides a detailed history of the emergence of Diamat and Istmat, and shines a spotlight on a figure widely recognised as the most important Soviet philosopher in the post-Stalin period - E.V. Ilyenkov.

L'évolution de la pensée de Georg Lukács

1971 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Tertulian
Keyword(s):  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Georg Lukács

Entretien avec Georg Lukács. Critique de la bureaucratie socialiste, questions de méthode

1971 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Györg Lukács ◽  
Yvon Bourdet
Keyword(s):  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Georg Lukács
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