Fragments of Modernity: Theories of Modernity in the Works of Simmel, Kracauer, and Benjamin: Theories of Modernity in the Works of Simmel, Kracauer, and Benjamin

Author: Frisby
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-12-01
Features: In recent years in China, we have repeatedly encountered modernity and had profound experiences: with longing, progress and regression, radicalism and conservatism, passion and disappointment, idealism and reality. These conflicting experiences have shaped our understanding and judgment of modernity. Modernity, from the West to the East, from modernity to contemporary times, is an open concept of "family resemblance," serving as a focal point of contradictions and conflicts in politics, economy, society, and culture during the modern process. This book primarily discusses the modernity thought and methods of Simmel, Kracauer, and Benjamin. The author argues that unlike scholars such as Habermas and Weber, who attempt to construct all-encompassing abstract theories of modernity, the three scholars' research on modernity begins with deciphering the mysteries of fragmented modernity: the "fragment of real contingency" revealed in Simmel's Philosophy of Money, and the "trivial surfaces" or "monadology" expressed in Kracauer's Mass Ornament and White Collar Worker, all redeeming subtle traces of modernity on the level of the everyday world. The book is innovative in content and delicate in writing, making it an excellent work that interprets modernity from aesthetic, political, or historical perspectives.