Nazi Fantasy: Vilm Flusser and History as Site of Experiment [Hardcover]

This book brings together Vil?m Flusser and intellectual Jewish history of the second half of the twentieth century. Flusser is viewed today by many scholars as the most original theoretician of media and photography in the second half of the twentieth century, and yet this is the first monograph about him in English.

Combining elements of Flussers biography with a rigorous study of his writing, this book shows that concepts of virtuality, medium, and embodiment underpin not only Flussers understanding of technological media, such as photography, but also his understanding of evolution and of real or imaginary biological organisms. This book argues that Flusser contended with Nazism in his writings on these biological and ecological themes. Two threads  and their relationship - are explored: the first bears on Nazism as undergirded by a biological perspective  an attempt to eradicate a population taken to be parasitic; in the second, Nazism is simply viewed as stupid.? Such a line of inquiry necessarily leads to and includes our dealing with the Nazi fantasy, because fantasy was fused into Nazisms own vision.

This book will not only be an ideal resource for students and scholars of intellectual Jewish history but will interest anyone seeking an introduction to Flusser and the philosophy of science within the context of Nazism.

Introduction

Part One - Reality as a Possibility

Life as an Alternative

Reality as a Realization of Possibility

The Apparatus and the Logic of Freedom

Jewish Writings

Part Two  The Human-Animal Interface as a Horizon of Interpretation

Biological Themes before Vampyroteuthis Infernalis

Vampyroteuthis Inl/