Family of Man / Theory of Film: Humanism, Cinephilia and the Politics of Siegfried Kracauer’s Late Film Theory

Conférencier : Johannes von Molkte (Michigan University, Ann Arbor)

Résumé :
Siegfried Kracauer's Theory of Film culminates in a section entitled “Family of Man” - an explicit reference to Edward Steichen’s exhibit at MoMA in 1954. That show has often considered the epitome of cold war liberal humanism, but Kracauer’s film theory complicates the ideological premises it invokes. Particularly when read in relation to his earlier work on film and material culture and his contemporaneous work on historiography, Theory of Film offers a nuanced rescue of humanism from the ruins of human subjectivity after World War II, the Holocaust, and the crisis of liberalism.