Ruins of Modernity

“. . . [A] unique and important contribution to the study of European modernity and its attendant aesthetic and political outputs.” - Mark Pendleton, Cultural Studies Review

“[T]he essays in this collection… provide a ground breaking cultural geography of the trauma of modernism’s past, located in the presence (or absence) of ruins that will provide philosophical groundwork (as well as concrete examples of geographical spaces) for literary/cultural critics.” - Susan Currell, Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

“[T]he scope of Ruins of Modernity is impressive, with papers ranging from war ruins to atomic ruins, from colonial ruins of Namibia to cinematic representations of ruins, reflecting the multifarious nature of ruins themselves.” - Dylan Trigg, Clio

“Julia Hell and Andreas Schönle have accomplished a genuine feat with this collection: they have built a shining edifice of scholarship from ‘ruins.’ If the mark of an impressive scholarly collection is that readers will with that they, too, had written something on the subject, then this volume certainly qualifies. The notable compendium of essays gathered here will make specialists and students alike look at the subject of ruins anew.” - Mary A. Nicholas, Slavic and East European Journal

“The essays are both philosophically and historically well studied and analysed; the least of what one can talk about is the context of ruinations, perhaps a subject which so far has not been theorised before.” - Krishnan Unni P, Millennium Post

“The reader of Ruins of Modernity ultimately engages in an excavation of the ruin, uncovering it from its historical, affective and aesthetic layers of usage, revealing how modernity is an operation always in progress. The excavation is enlightening, rewarding, and—despite the text’s daunting size—thoroughly enjoyable.” - Carrie Smith-Prei, Reviews in Cultural Theory

“This book’s strength lies in its polyvocality and its focus beyond the nation state. In fact, the coordinates of ruination include Detroit, Germany, Iraq, Israel, Mexico, Moscow, New York City, New Orleans, and South Africa, and the contributors subtend an interdisciplinary and transnational line of inquiry from philosophy, architecture, and sociology to literary and film studies. This book will be an excellent addition to the libraries of advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in the aforementioned fields, as well as for those interested in memory studies and critiques of modernity. . . . Ruins can reinforce dominant ideologies and fix subordination; they oppress and render peoples silent. The exceeding value of these essays lies in emphasizing that the subjugated matter, too.” - Vance Byrd, Monatshefte

“With this exemplary volume . . . editors Julia Hell and Andreas Schönle demonstrate what is to be gained when 24 scholars from nearly a dozen disciplines focus their expertise on the multivalenced discourses of ‘ruins’ in the cultural settings of five continents. . . . Some questions run through the volume almost as leitmotifs—what constitutes a ruin? Natural decay, catastrophe, human action? How does ‘rubble’ become a ‘ruin?’—clearly elude definitive answers, but the various essays are all the richer for the erudition and breadth of vision which they offer in the elucidation of ‘ruins.’” - Patricia Herminghouse, German Studies Review

“Ever since Shelley’s traveler returned from an ‘antique land’ with news of the shattered statue of Ozymandias, king of kings, we have pondered the sober lessons of ruins and their mockery of human pretension. In this remarkable collection assembled by Julia Hell and Andreas Schönle, the ruinscape is that of the modern world and the gazes fall as much on our prior attempts to make sense of it as on the ruins themselves.” - Martin Jay, author of Songs of Experience: Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme

“The scope of this book is ambitious; the execution is masterful. It is a superb collection of reflections by major scholars on the pervasive presence of ruins in contemporary cultures. It is sure to find a wide readership among urban historians; scholars of modernity; scholars and students of German, European, and post-Soviet studies; film scholars; and art historians.” - Ulrich Baer, author of Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma