Georg Lukács: An Intellectual Biography
“Georg Lukács has become a historical figure,” announced Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte in its editorial of the 2014 special issue on “Commissar Lukács.” “Astonishingly,” continued the editorial, “there is no extensive biography on him, although his life alone reads like a novel.” It is this hitherto lacking biography of the Hungarian literary theorist, philosopher, and political intellectual Georg Lukács (1885–1971) that, as a Heisenberg fellow, I will set out to write. Though it will not be written as a novel, I will try never to lose sight of the novelesque within this extraordinary life—for Lukács himself never stopped meditating on the relation between the form of the novel and the form of life, or more generally: He never stopped to ask how life, how our life under modern, capitalist (but also under post-capitalist, socialist) conditions may attain a form that can be lived consciously and affirmatively.
Publications
Aesthetic and Social Form after Lukács
Special Section New German Critique
Patrick Eiden-Offe
- Essayismus und Politik. Zu Georg Lukács und Hermann Broch, in: Sarah McGaughey, Elisa Risi, Daniel Weidner, Doren Wohlleben (eds.): Massenwahntheorie und Friedenspoetik. Hermann Broch und die bedrohte Demokratie des 20. Jahrhunderts, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter 2023, 185–201
- Review of: Jakob Hayner, Erik Zielke (eds.): Georg Lukács: Texte zum Theater. Berlin 2021, in: The Brecht Yearbook / Das Brecht-Jahrbuch 48 (2023), ed. by Markus Wessendorf et al., 369–372
- Romantik und romantischer Antikapitalismus bei Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch und Karl Mannheim, in: Michael Haase, Amália Kerekes, Anna Zsellér (eds.): Parallelen, Korrespondenzen und Nachwirkungen. Beiträge zur Rezeptionsgeschichte des Werks von Georg Lukács. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2023, 31–46
- Das Zerbrechen der Form am Leben. Georg Lukács zum 50. Todestag, in: Tagebuch. Zeitschrift für Auseinandersetzung 6 (2021), 44–49
- Verdinglichung. Ein Begriffsschicksal, in: Soziopolis, 4 June 2021
- Lebensform Revolution. Zum Projekt einer neuen Lukács-Biographie, in: Lukács 2019/2020. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Georg-Lukács-Gesellschaft, ed. by Rüdiger Dannemann, 215–227
- Literatur als Spiegel der Gesellschaft? Marxistische Positionen der Literaturtheorie, in: Andrea Allerkamp, Sarah Schmidt (eds.): Handbuch Literatur & Philosophie. Berlin: de Gruyter 2021, 251–260
Events
Contributions
4 Jun 2021 Video
“Georg Lukács im 21. Jahrhundert”
Panels and lectures at the conference marking the 50th anniversary of Georg Lukács’ death, organized by Rüdiger Dannemann, Patrick Eiden-Offe, and Frank Engster.
© Helle Panke
2 Jun 2021 Video
“Re-Reading Lukács. Theatergeschichte”
Workshop talk with Patrick Wengenroth and Patrick Eiden-Offe, moderated by Anja Nioduschewski, as part of the event series “Georg Lukács und das Theater – Re-Reading Lukács” at the Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus.
© Helle Panke