Stanley Corngold Books

Between 1938 and 1941, Princeton became a hub for a remarkable group of émigré intellectuals, notably including Thomas Mann, Hermann Broch, Albert Einstein, and Eric Kahler, a lesser-known yet influential professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. This narrative explores their collaborative artistic, political, and intellectual endeavors during Mann's tenure as a Professor of Humanities. Frequently gathering at Kahler's or Mann's home, this collective was dubbed the "Kahler-Circle" by young poet Charles Greenleaf Bell. During this period, Mann completed his "Goethe-novel" Lotte in Weimar, crafted the surrealistic novella The Transposed Heads, and continued his epic tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers, sharing drafts with Kahler and Broch. Kahler provided critical feedback on Mann's fiction while discussing his own political essays. Although Einstein shared political views with Mann, he preferred the company of Kahler and Broch, whom he supported financially. Kahler was writing his notable work, Man the Measure, for which Einstein contributed a foreword. Corngold aims to illuminate the intertwined lives and thoughts of these four thinkers during a politically and culturally tumultuous time, utilizing rich sources like Mann's diaries and correspondence among the group, filling a gap in the understanding of their vibrant intellectual life.

When the young salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning transformed into a monstrous insect, his shock and incomprehension are coupled with the panic of being late for work and having to reveal his appearance to family and colleagues. Although over the following weeks he gradually becomes used to this new existence confined within the bounds of the apartment, and his parents and sister adapt to living with a grotesque bug, Gregor notices that their attitudes towards him are changing and he feels increasingly alienated. One of the masterpieces of twentieth-century world literature, ‘The Metamorphosis’ is accompanied in this volume by a selection of other classic tales and sketches by Kafka – such as ‘The Judgement’, ‘In the Penal Colony’ and ‘A Country Doctor’ – all presented in a lively and meticulous new translation by Christopher Moncrieff.

"The first complete account of the ideas and writings of a major figure in twentieth-century intellectual life. Walter Kaufmann (1921-1980) was a charismatic philosopher, critic, translator, and poet who fled Nazi Germany at the age of eighteen, emigrating alone to the United States. He was astonishingly prolific until his untimely death at age fifty-nine, writing some dozen major books, all marked by breathtaking erudition and a provocative essayistic style. He single-handedly rehabilitated Nietzsche's reputation after World War II and was enormously influential in introducing postwar American readers to existentialism. Until now, no book has examined his intellectual legacy. Stanley Corngold provides the first in-depth study of Kaufmann's thought, covering all his major works. He shows how Kaufmann speaks to many issues that concern us today, such as the good of philosophy, the effects of religion, the persistence of tragedy, and the crisis of the humanities in an age of technology. Few scholars in modern times can match Kaufmann's range of interests, from philosophy and literature to intellectual history and comparative religion, from psychology and photography to art and architecture. Corngold provides a heartfelt portrait of a man who, to an extraordinary extent, transfigured his personal experience in the pages of his books. This original study, both appreciative and critical, is the definitive intellectual life of one of the twentieth century's most engaging yet neglected thinkers. It will introduce Kaufmann to a new generation of readers and serves as a fitting tribute to a scholar's incomparable libido sciendi, or lust for knowledge."-- Provided by publisher