Marshall Berman
Encyclopedia
Marshall Berman is an American philosopher and Marxist Humanist writer. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Political Science
at The City College of New York and at the Graduate Center
of the City University of New York
, teaching Political Philosophy
and Urbanism
.
, Berman completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University
in 1968. He is on the editorial board of Dissent
and a regular contributor to The Nation, The New York Times Book Review
, Bennington Review, New Left Review
, New Politics
and the Village Voice Literary Supplement.
His major work is All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
: The Experience Of Modernity. His most recent publication is the anthology, New York Calling: From Blackout To Bloomberg, for which he was co-editor, with Brian Berger, and also wrote the introductory essay. In Adventures in Marxism, Berman tells of how while a Columbia University student in 1959, the chance discovery of Karl Marx
's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
proved a revelation and inspiration, and became the foundation for all his future work. This personal tone pervades his work, linking historical trends with individual observations and inflections from the situation.
and cultural attitudes and philosophies towards the modern condition. Berman put forward his own definition of modernism
to counter post-modern philosophies.
This view of modernism is at odds with post-modernism. Paraphrasing Charles Baudelaire
, Michel Foucault
simply defined Modernism as the will to “heroize” the presenthttp://philosophy.eserver.org/foucault/what-is-enlightenment.html. Berman views postmodernism as a soulless and hopeless chamber in which a whole generation of Foucault's "followers" have chosen to suffocate and choke.
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
at The City College of New York and at the Graduate Center
CUNY Graduate Center
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes...
of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
, teaching Political Philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
and Urbanism
Urbanism
Broadly, urbanism is a focus on cities and urban areas, their geography, economies, politics, social characteristics, as well as the effects on, and caused by, the built environment.-Philosophy:...
.
Biography
An alumnus of Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Berman completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1968. He is on the editorial board of Dissent
Dissent (magazine)
Dissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....
and a regular contributor to The Nation, The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
, Bennington Review, New Left Review
New Left Review
New Left Review is a 160-page journal, published every two months from London, devoted to world politics, economy and culture. Often compared to the French-language Les Temps modernes, it is associated with Verso Books , and regularly features the essays of authorities on contemporary social...
, New Politics
New Politics (magazine)
New Politics is an independent socialist journal founded in 1961 and still published in the United States today. While it is inclusive of articles from a variety of left-of-center positions, the publication leans strongly toward a Third camp, democratic Marxist perspective, placing it typically to...
and the Village Voice Literary Supplement.
His major work is All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
All That Is Solid Melts into Air is an academic text written by Marshall Berman between 1971 and 1981, and published in New York in 1982. The book examines social and economic modernization and its conflicting relationship with modernism...
: The Experience Of Modernity. His most recent publication is the anthology, New York Calling: From Blackout To Bloomberg, for which he was co-editor, with Brian Berger, and also wrote the introductory essay. In Adventures in Marxism, Berman tells of how while a Columbia University student in 1959, the chance discovery of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 are a series of notes written between April and August 1844 by Karl Marx. Not published by Marx during his lifetime, they were first released in 1927 by researchers in the Soviet Union.The notebooks are an early expression of Marx's analysis of...
proved a revelation and inspiration, and became the foundation for all his future work. This personal tone pervades his work, linking historical trends with individual observations and inflections from the situation.
Modernity and modernism
During the mid- to late-20th century philosophical discourse focused on issues of modernityModernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
and cultural attitudes and philosophies towards the modern condition. Berman put forward his own definition of modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
to counter post-modern philosophies.
- Others believe that the really distinctive forms of contemporary art and thought have made a quantum leap beyond all the diverse sensibilities of modernism, and earned the right to call themselves “post-modern”. I want to respond to these antithetical but complementary claims by reviewing the vision of modernity with which this book began. To be modern, I said, is to experience personal and social life as a maelstrom, to find one's world and oneself in perpetual disintegration and renewal, trouble and anguish, ambiguity and contradiction: to be part of a universe in which all that is solid melts into air. To be a modernist is to make oneself somehow at home in the maelstrom, to make its rhythms one’s own, to move within its currents in search of the forms of reality, of beauty, of freedom, of justice, that its fervid and perilous flow allows.(All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, The Experience of Modernity, verso ninth edition Pages 345-346)
This view of modernism is at odds with post-modernism. Paraphrasing Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
, Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
simply defined Modernism as the will to “heroize” the presenthttp://philosophy.eserver.org/foucault/what-is-enlightenment.html. Berman views postmodernism as a soulless and hopeless chamber in which a whole generation of Foucault's "followers" have chosen to suffocate and choke.
See also
- American philosophyAmerican philosophyAmerican philosophy is the philosophical activity or output of Americans, both within the United States and abroad. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while American philosophy lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and...
- List of American philosophers
- Karl MarxKarl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
- ModernismModernismModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
- Post-Modernism
- Anti-modernism
- Marxist HumanismMarxist humanismMarxist humanism is a branch of Marxism that primarily focuses on Marx's earlier writings, especially the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 in which Marx espoused his theory of alienation, as opposed to his later works, which are considered to be concerned more with his structural...
- The Praxis Group
- Faustian
External links
- Eminent Domain: The American Dream on Sale with Marshall Berman at LIVE from the New York Public Library
- Tradition . . . Transgression! Singer in the Shtetl and on the Street by Marshall Berman
- "Interview with Marshall Berman and Brian Berger" of New York Calling: From Blackout To Bloomberg
- New York Times review of New York Calling: From Blackout To Bloomberg"
- "Time Out New York review of New York Calling: From Blackout To Bloomberg
- Freedom and Fetishism Source: Adventures in Marxism, publ. Verso, 1999. Just one of 13
- An Interview with Marshall Berman Interviewed by Tony Monchinski
- "The New York Review of Books" Contributions by Marshall Berman
- "Standing in the Doorway," Marshall Berman on Dissent in Dissent (magazine)Dissent (magazine)Dissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....
- Marshall Berman on a trip to Israel in Dissent (magazine)Dissent (magazine)Dissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....
- Marshall Berman on Times Square in Dissent (magazine)Dissent (magazine)Dissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....
- link Online Audio recordings of Berman's lectures
- Angel in the City by Marshall Berman
- Marshall Berman's Love Affair With Marx by Christopher HitchensChristopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
- On the Corner Review from The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, by David Margolick