"Nazi Fantasy"

Vilém Flusser and History as Site of Experiment
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-89332-7
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd (Sales)

Buch, Englisch, 148 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 390 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Modern European History

This book brings together Vilém Flusser and intellectual Jewish history of the second half of the twentieth century. Flusser is viewed today by many scholars as the most original theoretician of media and photography in the second half of the twentieth century, and yet this is the first monograph about him in English.

Combining elements of Flusser’s biography with a rigorous study of his writing, this book shows that concepts of ‘virtuality’, ‘medium’, and ‘embodiment’ underpin not only Flusser’s understanding of technological media, such as photography, but also his understanding of evolution and of real or imaginary biological organisms. This book argues that Flusser contended with Nazism in his writings on these biological and ecological themes. Two threads – and their relationship - are explored: the first bears on Nazism as undergirded by a biological perspective – an attempt to eradicate a population taken to be parasitic; in the second, Nazism is simply viewed as ‘stupid’.  Such a line of inquiry necessarily leads to and includes our dealing with the ‘Nazi fantasy’, because fantasy was fused into Nazism’s own vision.

This book will not only be an ideal resource for students and scholars of intellectual Jewish history but will interest anyone seeking an introduction to Flusser and the philosophy of science within the context of Nazism.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morris-Reich, Amos

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte des Judentums (Diaspora)
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte Deutsche Geschichte: Holocaust
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

Part One - Reality as a Possibility

Life as an Alternative

Reality as a Realization of Possibility

The “Apparatus” and the Logic of Freedom

Jewish Writings

Part Two – The Human-Animal Interface as a Horizon of Interpretation

Biological Themes before Vampyroteuthis Infernalis

Vampyroteuthis Infernalis as a “Nazi Fantasy”

Excursus: The Science Fiction of Holocaust Survivors:
A Comparison with Stanislaw Lem

Vampyrotheutis Infernalis and the Question of Evil

 

Part Three – The Rationality of Biology and the Stupidity of Nazism

The Apolitical Perspective

The Political Perspective

 

Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Amos Morris-Reich is the Geza Roth Chair of Modern Jewish History and a professor in the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University. His research intersects 19th- and 20th-century Jewish and science and technology history.