Marxist Modernism - by Gillian Rose (Paperback)

About the Book

"Gillian Rose's 1979 lectures on the Frankfurt School, art, and politics"--

Book Synopsis

Lectures on art, Marxism, and critical theory by the legendary philosopher, collected for the first time, with an afterword by Martin Jay

Marxist Modernism is a comprehensive yet concise and conversational introduction to the Frankfurt School. It is also a new resource from one of the twentieth century's most important philosophers: Gillian Rose.

Her 1979 lectures on the Frankfurt School explore the lives and philosophies of a range of the school's members and affiliates, including Adorno, Lukács, Brecht, Bloch, Benjamin, and Horkheimer, and outline the way each theorist developed Marx's theory of commodity fetishism into a Marxist theory of culture.

Edited by Robert Lucas Scott and James Gordon Finlayson

Review Quotes

"This is the best starting place for a new generation of Rose-readers, a reminder of where it all began, when modernists could still be Marxists and theologians belonged to a previous age. A treat for the Roserati."
--Peter Osborne, Director, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University London, author of Crisis as Form

"To read these lectures is to watch a great mind at work. Animated by her discovery of an incisive and socially relevant left-wing intellectual tradition, Rose approaches teaching by conveying that excitement - precisely the philosophical eros she would later extol. For readers familiar with Rose's rigorous and sometimes forbidding books, these lectures reveal an unexpected, intimate pedagogical side. Alongside her unique and pioneering reception of the Frankfurt School, we can see Rose's own singular contributions to political thought - her meditations on law, violence, the relationship between aesthetic imagination and social order - begin to find their grounds in her readings of, and arguments with, her predecessors."
--James Butler, London Review of Books

"In these early and inviting lectures, written in a high conversational style, Gillian Rose brilliantly reconstructs first generation Critical Theory as "Marxist modernism" by demonstrating how Georg Lukács's generalization of commodity fetishism from a concept belonging to the critique of political economy into dialectics of society enables the development of the critique of culture in Bloch, Adorno, Benjamin, and Brecht. The promise and potential of dereifying critique that Rose demonstrates, of revealing the immediacies of given social reality as the products of 'human sensuous activity, practice," seems more urgent today than ever before. To read these lectures today is a painful reminder of how much we miss and still need to engage with Gillian Rose's fierce intellect."
--J.M. Bernstein, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, New School

"As you know, dialectics is a very slippery term.... Do you know this phrase, repressive toleration? Have you come upon it? No. Okay.... How I would have loved to have been there. These lectures are revelatory - exhilarating, passionate, brilliant, ambitious. They're everything we've always admired and loved about Gillian Rose, but show us another side of this towering intellect - her brilliance as a teacher. It's the perfect accompaniment to the classic Aesthetics and Politics and a belated gift to us all."
--Rebecca Comay, author of The Dash - The Other Side of Absolute Knowing

"A fierce vigilance of thought."
--Guardian

"Writing wholly from within the tradition of modern European philosophy and social thought, Rose produced one of the most distinctive and original bodies of work of her generation."
--Guardian

"[A] remarkable insight into one of the most brilliant philosophical and sociological minds of the late-20th century"
--Nicholas Gane, Theory, Culture & Society

"That a reader can now encounter Rose without the severe style is of course ironic, given the very arguments she makes here about form, but the lectures nevertheless have great propaedeutic value - just as they had with Hegel and Adorno. To be praised is the work of Robert Lucas Scott and James Gordon Finlayson in transcribing and editing them: their helpful annotations and perceptive introduction, together with Jay's afterword, now give us a fuller, more rounded picture of Rose's intellectual development."
--Adrian Wilding, Historical Materialism

"[A] remarkable insight into one of the most brilliant philosophical and sociological minds of the late-20th century"
--Nicholas Gane, Theory, Culture & Society

About the Author

Gillian Rose (1947-1995) was one of the twentieth century's most important philosophers and social theorists. She was a lecturer in sociology at the University of Sussex, and then chair of Social and Political Thought at the University of Warwick. She is the author of works such as Hegel Contra Sociology (1981), The Broken Middle: Out of Our Ancient Society (1992), and her memoir Love's Work: A Reckoning with Life (1995).