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Marx's Capital looms large today, a century and a half after first publication, a massive tome that attempts to document and map out the dynamics of a society consumed by capital accumulation. The complexity and scope, as well as its voluminous incompleteness upon his death, have left many readers perplexed, looking for a ‘royal road' to comprehension. However, this has led to a number of misreadings, with commentators often trying to pick at what they assume is the core of the text, leaving the rest behind. Against this, Thomas Kemple in his new book Marx's Wager: Das Kapital and Classical Sociology (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) argues that understanding Capital mean's reading it not just for the economic equations, but the social and moral insights as well. Rather than see Marx's quotations of literature and poetry as an embellishment to spice up the economic analysis, he sees it performing moral and analytic work as well, allowing Marx to explore the nature of capitalism at a much broader level than narrow economics will allow. Putting Marx in dialogue with his contemporaries, particularly Durkheim, Weber and Simmel, Kemple finds Marx's work to be much more dynamic and comprehensive than many of his readers have previously realized. This little book offers close textual analysis that will enable readers to approach Marx with fresh eyes, seeing elements of their society and themselves in the text that may have previously gone unnoticed. Thomas Kemple is a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of several books, including Reading Marx Writing: Melodrama, the Market and the Grundrisse, Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber's Calling and most recently Simmel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Marx's Capital looms large today, a century and a half after first publication, a massive tome that attempts to document and map out the dynamics of a society consumed by capital accumulation. The complexity and scope, as well as its voluminous incompleteness upon his death, have left many readers perplexed, looking for a ‘royal road' to comprehension. However, this has led to a number of misreadings, with commentators often trying to pick at what they assume is the core of the text, leaving the rest behind. Against this, Thomas Kemple in his new book Marx's Wager: Das Kapital and Classical Sociology (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) argues that understanding Capital mean's reading it not just for the economic equations, but the social and moral insights as well. Rather than see Marx's quotations of literature and poetry as an embellishment to spice up the economic analysis, he sees it performing moral and analytic work as well, allowing Marx to explore the nature of capitalism at a much broader level than narrow economics will allow. Putting Marx in dialogue with his contemporaries, particularly Durkheim, Weber and Simmel, Kemple finds Marx's work to be much more dynamic and comprehensive than many of his readers have previously realized. This little book offers close textual analysis that will enable readers to approach Marx with fresh eyes, seeing elements of their society and themselves in the text that may have previously gone unnoticed. Thomas Kemple is a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of several books, including Reading Marx Writing: Melodrama, the Market and the Grundrisse, Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber's Calling and most recently Simmel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
Marx's Capital looms large today, a century and a half after first publication, a massive tome that attempts to document and map out the dynamics of a society consumed by capital accumulation. The complexity and scope, as well as its voluminous incompleteness upon his death, have left many readers perplexed, looking for a ‘royal road' to comprehension. However, this has led to a number of misreadings, with commentators often trying to pick at what they assume is the core of the text, leaving the rest behind. Against this, Thomas Kemple in his new book Marx's Wager: Das Kapital and Classical Sociology (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) argues that understanding Capital mean's reading it not just for the economic equations, but the social and moral insights as well. Rather than see Marx's quotations of literature and poetry as an embellishment to spice up the economic analysis, he sees it performing moral and analytic work as well, allowing Marx to explore the nature of capitalism at a much broader level than narrow economics will allow. Putting Marx in dialogue with his contemporaries, particularly Durkheim, Weber and Simmel, Kemple finds Marx's work to be much more dynamic and comprehensive than many of his readers have previously realized. This little book offers close textual analysis that will enable readers to approach Marx with fresh eyes, seeing elements of their society and themselves in the text that may have previously gone unnoticed. Thomas Kemple is a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of several books, including Reading Marx Writing: Melodrama, the Market and the Grundrisse, Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber's Calling and most recently Simmel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
Marx's Capital looms large today, a century and a half after first publication, a massive tome that attempts to document and map out the dynamics of a society consumed by capital accumulation. The complexity and scope, as well as its voluminous incompleteness upon his death, have left many readers perplexed, looking for a ‘royal road' to comprehension. However, this has led to a number of misreadings, with commentators often trying to pick at what they assume is the core of the text, leaving the rest behind. Against this, Thomas Kemple in his new book Marx's Wager: Das Kapital and Classical Sociology (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) argues that understanding Capital mean's reading it not just for the economic equations, but the social and moral insights as well. Rather than see Marx's quotations of literature and poetry as an embellishment to spice up the economic analysis, he sees it performing moral and analytic work as well, allowing Marx to explore the nature of capitalism at a much broader level than narrow economics will allow. Putting Marx in dialogue with his contemporaries, particularly Durkheim, Weber and Simmel, Kemple finds Marx's work to be much more dynamic and comprehensive than many of his readers have previously realized. This little book offers close textual analysis that will enable readers to approach Marx with fresh eyes, seeing elements of their society and themselves in the text that may have previously gone unnoticed. Thomas Kemple is a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of several books, including Reading Marx Writing: Melodrama, the Market and the Grundrisse, Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber's Calling and most recently Simmel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
Marx's Capital looms large today, a century and a half after first publication, a massive tome that attempts to document and map out the dynamics of a society consumed by capital accumulation. The complexity and scope, as well as its voluminous incompleteness upon his death, have left many readers perplexed, looking for a ‘royal road' to comprehension. However, this has led to a number of misreadings, with commentators often trying to pick at what they assume is the core of the text, leaving the rest behind. Against this, Thomas Kemple in his new book Marx's Wager: Das Kapital and Classical Sociology (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) argues that understanding Capital mean's reading it not just for the economic equations, but the social and moral insights as well. Rather than see Marx's quotations of literature and poetry as an embellishment to spice up the economic analysis, he sees it performing moral and analytic work as well, allowing Marx to explore the nature of capitalism at a much broader level than narrow economics will allow. Putting Marx in dialogue with his contemporaries, particularly Durkheim, Weber and Simmel, Kemple finds Marx's work to be much more dynamic and comprehensive than many of his readers have previously realized. This little book offers close textual analysis that will enable readers to approach Marx with fresh eyes, seeing elements of their society and themselves in the text that may have previously gone unnoticed. Thomas Kemple is a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of several books, including Reading Marx Writing: Melodrama, the Market and the Grundrisse, Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber's Calling and most recently Simmel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s work by attending to his spoken and written voice. Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) looks carefully at the literary structure and aesthetic elements of Weber’s arguments, considering how the texts offer an “allegorical resource for thinking sociologically.” Kemple argues that the formal structure of Weber’s ideas is inseparable from the content, and that understanding one is crucial for understanding the other. As a way into that formal structure, in each chapter Kemple offers an ingenious visual diagram that acts as a kind of “talking picture,” simultaneously evoking the cinematic elements of Weber’s own work and giving readers another tool for engaging the performative aspects of it. Kemple’s book is particularly attentive to the ways that Weber’s performance is shaped by a close engagement with the work of other writers, musicians, and thinkers, from Goethe and Tolstoy to Machiavelli and Martin Luther, and from the Bhagavadgita to The Valkyries. In addition, Marianne Weber – Max’s “wife, intellectual partner, and posthumous editor” – is an important presence throughout the book in helping us understand and read Weber’s work anew. Kemple’s thoughtful and beautifully written analysis helps us understand not just Weber’s own work, but also the value of that work for attending to issues of our own present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s work by attending to his spoken and written voice. Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) looks carefully at the literary structure and aesthetic elements of Weber’s arguments, considering how the texts offer an “allegorical resource for thinking sociologically.” Kemple argues that the formal structure of Weber’s ideas is inseparable from the content, and that understanding one is crucial for understanding the other. As a way into that formal structure, in each chapter Kemple offers an ingenious visual diagram that acts as a kind of “talking picture,” simultaneously evoking the cinematic elements of Weber’s own work and giving readers another tool for engaging the performative aspects of it. Kemple’s book is particularly attentive to the ways that Weber’s performance is shaped by a close engagement with the work of other writers, musicians, and thinkers, from Goethe and Tolstoy to Machiavelli and Martin Luther, and from the Bhagavadgita to The Valkyries. In addition, Marianne Weber – Max’s “wife, intellectual partner, and posthumous editor” – is an important presence throughout the book in helping us understand and read Weber’s work anew. Kemple’s thoughtful and beautifully written analysis helps us understand not just Weber’s own work, but also the value of that work for attending to issues of our own present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s work by attending to his spoken and written voice. Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) looks carefully at the literary structure and aesthetic elements of Weber’s arguments, considering how the texts offer an “allegorical resource for thinking sociologically.” Kemple argues that the formal structure of Weber’s ideas is inseparable from the content, and that understanding one is crucial for understanding the other. As a way into that formal structure, in each chapter Kemple offers an ingenious visual diagram that acts as a kind of “talking picture,” simultaneously evoking the cinematic elements of Weber’s own work and giving readers another tool for engaging the performative aspects of it. Kemple’s book is particularly attentive to the ways that Weber’s performance is shaped by a close engagement with the work of other writers, musicians, and thinkers, from Goethe and Tolstoy to Machiavelli and Martin Luther, and from the Bhagavadgita to The Valkyries. In addition, Marianne Weber – Max’s “wife, intellectual partner, and posthumous editor” – is an important presence throughout the book in helping us understand and read Weber’s work anew. Kemple’s thoughtful and beautifully written analysis helps us understand not just Weber’s own work, but also the value of that work for attending to issues of our own present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s work by attending to his spoken and written voice. Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) looks carefully at the literary structure and aesthetic elements of Weber’s arguments, considering how the texts offer an “allegorical resource for thinking sociologically.” Kemple argues that the formal structure of Weber’s ideas is inseparable from the content, and that understanding one is crucial for understanding the other. As a way into that formal structure, in each chapter Kemple offers an ingenious visual diagram that acts as a kind of “talking picture,” simultaneously evoking the cinematic elements of Weber’s own work and giving readers another tool for engaging the performative aspects of it. Kemple’s book is particularly attentive to the ways that Weber’s performance is shaped by a close engagement with the work of other writers, musicians, and thinkers, from Goethe and Tolstoy to Machiavelli and Martin Luther, and from the Bhagavadgita to The Valkyries. In addition, Marianne Weber – Max’s “wife, intellectual partner, and posthumous editor” – is an important presence throughout the book in helping us understand and read Weber’s work anew. Kemple’s thoughtful and beautifully written analysis helps us understand not just Weber’s own work, but also the value of that work for attending to issues of our own present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s work by attending to his spoken and written voice. Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) looks carefully at the literary structure and aesthetic elements of Weber’s arguments, considering how the texts offer an “allegorical resource for thinking sociologically.” Kemple argues that the formal structure of Weber’s ideas is inseparable from the content, and that understanding one is crucial for understanding the other. As a way into that formal structure, in each chapter Kemple offers an ingenious visual diagram that acts as a kind of “talking picture,” simultaneously evoking the cinematic elements of Weber’s own work and giving readers another tool for engaging the performative aspects of it. Kemple’s book is particularly attentive to the ways that Weber’s performance is shaped by a close engagement with the work of other writers, musicians, and thinkers, from Goethe and Tolstoy to Machiavelli and Martin Luther, and from the Bhagavadgita to The Valkyries. In addition, Marianne Weber – Max’s “wife, intellectual partner, and posthumous editor” – is an important presence throughout the book in helping us understand and read Weber’s work anew. Kemple’s thoughtful and beautifully written analysis helps us understand not just Weber’s own work, but also the value of that work for attending to issues of our own present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s work by attending to his spoken and written voice. Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) looks carefully at the literary structure and aesthetic elements of Weber’s arguments, considering how the texts offer an “allegorical resource for thinking sociologically.” Kemple argues that the formal structure of Weber’s ideas is inseparable from the content, and that understanding one is crucial for understanding the other. As a way into that formal structure, in each chapter Kemple offers an ingenious visual diagram that acts as a kind of “talking picture,” simultaneously evoking the cinematic elements of Weber’s own work and giving readers another tool for engaging the performative aspects of it. Kemple’s book is particularly attentive to the ways that Weber’s performance is shaped by a close engagement with the work of other writers, musicians, and thinkers, from Goethe and Tolstoy to Machiavelli and Martin Luther, and from the Bhagavadgita to The Valkyries. In addition, Marianne Weber – Max’s “wife, intellectual partner, and posthumous editor” – is an important presence throughout the book in helping us understand and read Weber’s work anew. Kemple’s thoughtful and beautifully written analysis helps us understand not just Weber’s own work, but also the value of that work for attending to issues of our own present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s work by attending to his spoken and written voice. Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) looks carefully at the literary structure and aesthetic elements of Weber’s arguments, considering how the texts offer an “allegorical resource for thinking sociologically.” Kemple argues that the formal structure of Weber’s ideas is inseparable from the content, and that understanding one is crucial for understanding the other. As a way into that formal structure, in each chapter Kemple offers an ingenious visual diagram that acts as a kind of “talking picture,” simultaneously evoking the cinematic elements of Weber’s own work and giving readers another tool for engaging the performative aspects of it. Kemple’s book is particularly attentive to the ways that Weber’s performance is shaped by a close engagement with the work of other writers, musicians, and thinkers, from Goethe and Tolstoy to Machiavelli and Martin Luther, and from the Bhagavadgita to The Valkyries. In addition, Marianne Weber – Max’s “wife, intellectual partner, and posthumous editor” – is an important presence throughout the book in helping us understand and read Weber’s work anew. Kemple’s thoughtful and beautifully written analysis helps us understand not just Weber’s own work, but also the value of that work for attending to issues of our own present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices