Max L. Feldman, Author at Public Seminar

Art & Design

Blood for the Future

The Northern Ireland “Troubles” in Les Levine’s Resurrection

September 4, 2019 • by Max L. Feldman

These events form part of the Holy Cross Dispute, a period of eight months of acute sectarian tension in Northern Ireland. During this time, Holy Cross Girls Primary School, a Catholic elementary school in a Protestant enclave of Ardoyne, north Belfast, was picketed by hundreds of loyalist Protestant protestors trying to stop ...

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Wounds Yet to Scar: Collective Memory in Contemporary Chilean Video Art

Memory and trauma in Remembering What Is at Lunds Konsthall

July 1, 2019 • by Max L. Feldman

In the film, Guzmán and his crew interview members of the increasingly split electorate. They attend rallies, ride buses, and show up in modern high-rise apartments, asking the people they meet the same two questions: “Who will win the election?” and “How do you see the future?” This film plays a ...

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Permanent Mystifications

The Story of Post-Conceptual Art in Slovakia

April 30, 2019 • by Max L. Feldman

Prague City Gallery’s “Probe 1: The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual Art” (12th December 2018 - 24th March 2019) came and went unnoticed. This is hardly surprising, despite the prime location of the museum’s 13th-century Stone Bell House site: a corner of the Old Town Square beneath the piercing spires of the Church ...

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Telescopes for our Senses

The Interstellar Imagination of Alexander Kluge

March 29, 2019 • by Max L. Feldman

In his Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant said two things fill the mind with awe: “the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.” This image, bridging the vast gap between our inner lives and outer space, is vital for Alexander Kluge, too. We need to develop “the ...

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In the Shadow of the Swastika

A Reply to Lindsay Parkhowell’s ‘Irony and Historical Detachment’

August 8, 2018 • by Max L. Feldman

It all started with a Facebook post. Upon arrival at London Gatwick airport, professor and Public Seminar editor Michael Weinman saw an advertisement on which someone had drawn a Swastika. Shocked, he uploaded a hastily taken photograph. One commenter argued that the Swastika should not be shocking because it is an ancient ...

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Courage Before the Break

Agnes Heller’s Theory of “Radical Needs” Revisited

March 30, 2018 • by Max L. Feldman

“Good persons exist, how are they possible?” With this question, inimitable Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller outlines her philosophical territory. As readers of critical theory, it is hard to know how to begin expressing our admiration for the energetic grande dame of our tradition. One anecdote might suffice: Heller’s mentor, the great, but ...