Article Details
In: KulturPoetik 2020, Issue 2
Author
Christoph Schaub
Title
Category
Beitrag
Abstract
This article examines Siegfried Kracauers discussions and representations of early globalization in his short city texts from the Weimar Republic. It argues that Kracauer anticipates assumptions predominant in contemporary theories of globalization and thus should be part of a yet to be written history of globalization theory avant la lettre. Specifically, the article demonstrates that we find in Kracauers city texts an association of early globalization with the seemingly contradictory processes of cultural hybridization and homogenization. Kracauer is able to capture this multidimensionality of cultural globalization because he employs deductive and inductive approaches (philosophy of history, urban ethnography) in his engagement with dissimilar phenomena of transnational urban culture (New Building, harbor cities). The article closes by suggesting that fragments of a media theory of globalization can be detected in Kracauers writings as well.