Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Context

Contemporary Political Theory, 2016

In her talk on ''Critical Theory and Surreal Practice'' Elisabeth Lenk asks, ''[w]hether surrealism … was and is not precisely the practice that is appropriate to critical theory; and whether … critical theory was and is not precisely the theory toward which surreal practice was oriented'' (p. 41). This incisive question provides the framework for thinking about the relationship between the Frankfurt School tradition of critical theory and surrealism in The Challenge of Surrealism: The Correspondence of Theodor W. Adorno and Elisabeth Lenk. In addition to the correspondence, which appears in English for the first time, the volume includes a rich selection of essays that provide additional context for Lenk and Adorno's spirited exchange. The volume is organized around the correspondence, which lasts from 1962 until Adorno's death in 1969. Lenk was Adorno's graduate student, living in France and writing a dissertation on André Breton's surrealist group in Paris. As an active member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Lenk was on the front lines of the student movements and met daily with the surrealists until she was expelled for ''situationist deviation'' in 1967. In addition to the correspondence, there are three essays from Lenk including her talk on ''Critical Theory and Surreal Practice,'' ''Sense and Sensibility: Afterword to Louis Aragon's Paris Peasant,'' and an introduction to Charles Fourier's The Theory of the Four Movements and the General Destinies. The volume also presents fresh translations of Walter Benjamin's ''Surrealism: Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia'' and Adorno's ''Surrealism Reconsidered,'' along with four prose pieces written pseudonymously by Adorno and Carl Dreyfus. The collection begins with a provocative introduction by Rita Bischof, ''Departures: Critical Theory and Surrealism.'' Bischof, Lenk's student and friend, begins by reflecting on recent political movements including the Arab Spring protests and Pussy Riot, arguing

Symploke, 2018

Full Title: The Challenge of Surrealism: The Correspondence of Theodor W. Adorno and Elisabeth Lenk

Asiascape: Digital Asia, 2017

So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life real life, I mean -that in the end this belief is lost. Man, that inveterate dreamer, daily more discontent with his destiny, has trouble assessing the objects he has been led to use, objects that his nonchalance has brought his way, or that he has earned through his own efforts, almost always through his own efforts, for he has agreed to work, at least he has not refused to try his luck (or what he calls his luck!). At this point he feels extremely modest: he knows what women he has had, what silly affairs he has been involved in; he is unimpressed by his wealth or his poverty, in this respect he is still a newborn babe and, as for the approval of his conscience, I confess that he does very nicely without it. If he still retains a certain lucidity, all he can do is turn back toward his

2016

2016

Secrets and journeys, 2021