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Blog entries on '04 July 2006'
Tuesday 04 July 2006
Philip Rieff RIP
I've just learned of the death of Philip Rieff (1922-2006). He died last Saturday in Philadelphia. "Rieff was a sociologist best known for his examination of the social consequences — especially the moral consequences — of the assimilation of the ideas of Freud into modern culture."
In 1989, the University of Chicago Press published a collection of Rieff's essays, The Feeling Intellect: Selected Writings, edited by Jonathan B. Imber. They also have two of Rieff's most influential works: Freud: The Mind of the Moralist and The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud.
Just recently the University of Virginia Press published My Life Among the Deathworks:
...Rieff articulates a comprehensive, typological theory of Western culture. Using visual illustrations and unique juxtapositions, he displays remarkable erudition in drawing from such disciplines as sociology, history, literature, poetry, music, plastic arts, and film; he contrasts the changing modes of spiritual and social thought that have struggled for dominance throughout Western history. Our modern culture—to Rieff's mind only the "third" type in western history—is the object of his deepest scrutiny, described here as morally ruinous, death-affirming rather than life-affirming, and representing an unprecedented attempt to create a culture completely devoid of any concept of the sacred.
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: philosophy, politics
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Tuesday 04 July 2006
Jerzy Ficowski
Jerzy Ficowski's only book of his own fiction Waiting for the Dog to Sleep (Twisted Spoon Press) is one of my Books of the Week this week. There is a useful short obituary for Ficowski over at Forward.com which gives some background to this important Polish writer and expert on Bruno Schulz. (For more on BS, see Mark Kaplan's tribute to Bruno Schulz.)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: authors, rsb
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Tuesday 04 July 2006
July's Books of the Month
I'm never quite sure why "summer reading" has come to be a synonym for "reading rubbish books", but the lists that abound at this time of year rarely seem to bring one's attention to anything decent. I hope my own Books of the Month for July offer a little more food for thought ...
First up is Darkness Spoken the collected poems of the extraordinary Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann (published by Zephyr Press, "a non-profit arts and education organization" based in the US that have a very good list).
And then we have Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger: An Unresolved Conversation by James K. Lyon (Johns Hopkins University Press): "Drawing heavily on documentary material—including Celan's reading notes on more than two dozen works by Heidegger, the philosopher's written response to the poet's Meridian speech, and references to Heidegger in Celan's letters—Lyon presents a focused perspective on this critical aspect of the poet's intellectual development and provides important insights into his relationship with Heidegger, transforming previous conceptions of it."
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: book news, rsb
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Tuesday 04 July 2006
New site for Carcanet
Michael Schmidt's excellent publishing house, Carcanet ("simply one of the best literary publishers in the world" according to Charles Simic), has just redesigned its website. Nice clean lines, and more easily navigable than its previous incarnation, the site promises more interactive features to come.
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: blogosphere
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