Essays on Culture

Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat. (“Unhappy the Land that needs heroes.”) –Galileo in Brecht’s Leben des Galilei Dislike of the Subject As poet Marianne Moore once said about Poetry, “I too dislike it.” Apparently Brecht disliked it as well.  I can’t say that I’m crazy about it either. In these post-9/11 days, the…

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) is best known and remembered as a leading lyric poet, the foremost dramatist in the German language and, with Goethe, a top representative of the Classical German national literature. His versatility is indeed astonishing considering his foray into philosophy as master essayist influenced by Kant, and into history, with a brief tenure…

Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions and Wolfgang Becker’s Good Bye Lenin! were internationally recognized as among the best films of 2003.  They share a concern with the decline and demise of dominant ideologies of the twentieth century in the face of globalization, and also use a remarkably similar plot device to convey this theme: a…