Books by Miriam Hansen

Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno-affiliated through friendship, professional ties, and argument-developed an astute philosophical critique of modernity in which technological media played a key role. This book explores in depth their reflections on cinema and photography from the Weimar period up to the 1960s. Miriam Bratu Hansen brings to life an impressive archive of known and, in the case of Kracauer, less known materials and reveals surprising perspectives on canonic texts, including Benjamin's artwork essay. Her lucid analysis extrapolates from these writings the contours of a theory of cinema and experience that speaks to questions being posed anew as moving image culture evolves in response to digital technology.

Focusing on exemplary moments in the American silent era, Hansen explains how the concept of the spectator evolved as a crucial part of the classical Hollywood paradigm-as one of the new industry's strategies to integrate ethnically, socially, and sexually differentiated audiences in a modern culture of consumption.