The significance of the German philosopher and social thinker, Georg Simmel (1858–1918), is only now being recognised by intellectual historians. Through penetrating readings of Simmel's thought, taken as a series of reflections on the essence of modernity and modern civilisation, Efraim Podoksik places his ideas within the context of intellectual life in Germany, and especially Berlin, under the Kaiserreich. Modernity, characterised by the growing differentiation and fragmentation of culture and society, was a fundamental issue during Simmel's life, underpinning central intellectual debates in Imperial Germany. Simmel's thought is depicted here as an attempt at transforming the complexity of these debates into a coherent worldview that can serve as an effective guide to understanding their main parameters. Paying particular attention to the genealogy and usage of the concepts of Bildung, culture and civilisation in Germany, this study offers contextual analyses of Simmel's philosophies of culture, society, art, religion and the feminine, as well as his interpretations of Dante, Kant, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Goethe and Rembrandt.

Offers a penetrating, contextual interpretation of German philosopher and social thinker Georg Simmel's ideas on modernity and modern civilisation.

This collection enables the reader to engage with the full range of Georg Simmel's dazzling contributions to the study of culture. It opens with his basic essays on defining culture, its changes and its crisis. These are followed by more specific explorations of culture.

"This book is a first of its kind: an edited collection bringing the finest of Georg Simmel's writing on art and aesthetics together, and bringing many of these essays into English for the first time. Simmel is considered one of the founding fathers of modern sociology but he, like his contemporary Walter Benjamin, wrote about many aspects of life and culture. Simmel's intellectual contributions have long been recognized and he is a keystone in cultural theory of the early 20th century. The essays in this collection are gathered topically and show the wide range of Simmel's thinking even within the arts: aesthetics, landscape, theater, sculpture, literature, and more. Austin Harrington is the brilliant guide behind this substantial volume. He served as editor and translator and also wrote an introduction. Richly informative and thoroughly familiar with Simmel's life and work, Harrington's introduction will itself be an important contribution to the scholarship on Simmel"--

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