Scholars@Duke
Henry Pickford

Henry Pickford

Professor of German Studies
German Studies
henry.pickford@duke.edu
PO Box 90256, 116K Old Chem, Durham, NC 27708
Department of Germanic Languag, Box 90256, Durham, NC 27708
Office hours

Selected Publications

Adorno and the categories of resistance

Journal Article Constellations · June 2024 Full text Cite

Life, Logic, Style: On Late Wittgenstein

Chapter · 2023 In addition to explaining what "literary Wittgensteinianism" is, it provides a point of entry into the chapters of this volume by explaining the basic difference between the "early" and "late" Wittgenstein and how each has ope ... Full text Cite

"Teaching of Life": Tolstoy's moral-philosophical aesthetics

Chapter · May 22, 2021 This chapter outlines and evaluates Tolstoy's theory of art as presented in his What is Art? I focus on his concept of emotion, moral emotions and their expression or elicitation in art works. Along the way I indicate where additional theorizing is require ... Full text Cite

Recognizing "the party of humankind": Käte Hamburger on Mitleid

Journal Article MLN - Modern Language Notes · April 1, 2021 Full text Cite

Knock Knock

Journal Article Krisis · January 1, 2021 Full text Cite

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69)

Chapter · December 29, 2020 Cite

Adorno and literary Criticism

Chapter · January 1, 2020 This essay first contextualizes Adorno’s essays in literary criticism in relation to his historico-philosophical account of modern rationalization and late capitalism, his dialectical theory of culture, and his return to postwar Germany. It then presents t ... Full text Cite

REMARKS ON THE RIDDLE-CHARACTER OF ART AND METAPHYSICAL EXPERIENCE

Journal Article CONSTELACIONES-REVISTA DE TEORIA CRITICA · 2020 Open Access Cite

Tolstoy's Selfie

Other Novel · May 1, 2017 Full text Cite

Thinking with tolstoy and wittgenstein: Expression, emotion, and art

Book · January 1, 2015 In this highly original interdisciplinary study incorporating close readings of literary texts and philosophical argumentation, Henry W. Pickford develops a theory of meaning and expression in art intended to counter the meaning skepticism most commonly as ... Cite

In defense of intuitions: A new rationalist manifesto

Book · October 6, 2013 A reply to contemporary skepticism about intuitions and a priori knowledge, and a defense of neo-rationalism from a contemporary Kantian standpoint, focusing on the theory of rational intuitions and on solving the two core problems of justifying and explai ... Full text Cite

Thinking with Kleist: Michael Kohlhaas and moral luck

Journal Article German Quarterly · October 1, 2013 The concept of moral luck comprises four aspects of acts of the Kantian will that are beyond the control of the agent and yet, paradoxically, can affect her moral appraisal. The challenge posed to Kantian moral theory by moral luck was identified by Schlei ... Full text Cite

The Sense of Semblance:Philosophical Analyses of Holocaust Art

Book · 2013 Drawing on work in contemporary analytic philosophy and Adorno's normative aesthetic theory, this book aims to show how selected Holocaust artworks in a variety of media (lyric poetry by Paul Celan, Holocaust memorials, quotational texts ... ... Cite

Dialectical reflections on Peter Eisenman's Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe

Journal Article Architectural Theory Review · August 1, 2012 Normative, conceptual minimal conditions of adequacy for any Holocaust memorial arguably include a historical relation, in that the artwork must bear an intentional relation to historical facts of the Holocaust, and an aesthetic relation, in that the artwo ... Full text Cite

The Last Soviet Photographer

Journal Article Raritan · 2012 Link to item Cite

Reason and revelation

Chapter · July 22, 2005 Cite

Conflict and commemoration: Two Berlin memorials

Journal Article Modernism - Modernity · January 1, 2005 Full text Cite

Critical Models Interventions and Catchwords

Book · 2005 "Critical Models' combines two of Adorno's most important postwar works - 'Interventions' and 'Catchwords"--And addresses issues such as the dangers of ideological conformity, the fragility of democracy, educational reform, th ... Cite

Critical Models: Adorno's Theory and Practice of Cultural Criticism

Journal Article The Yale Journal of Criticism · September 1997 Full text Cite

Selected Early Poems of Lev Loseff

Book Translated with annotations by Henry W. Pickford ... Cite

Intuition as a Capacity for a Priori Knowledge

Journal Article Philosophical Investigations Link to item Cite