Difference and Orientation: An Alexander Kluge Reader (signale|TRANSFER: German Thought in Translation)

Alexander Kluge is one of contemporary Germanys leading intellectuals and artists. A key architect of the New German Cinema and a pioneer of auteur television programming he has also cowritten three acclaimed volumes of critical theory published countless essays and numerous works of fiction and continues to make films even as he expands his video production to the internet. Despite Kluges five decades of work in philosophy literature television and media politics his reputation outside of the German-speaking world still largely rests on his films of the 1960s 70s and 80s. With the aim of introducing Kluges heterogeneous mind to an Anglophone readership Difference and Orientation assembles thirty of his essays speeches glossaries and interviews revolving around the capacity for differentiation and the need for orientation toward ways out of catastrophic modernity. This landmark volume brings together some of Kluges most fundamental statements on literature film pre- and post-cinematic media and social theory nearly all for the first time in English translation. Together these works highlight Kluges career-spanning commitment to unorthodox essayistic thinking.