Ernst Bloch

The aesthetic essays of the philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) belong to the rich tradition of cultural criticism represented by Georg Lukacs, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. Bloch was a significant creative source for these thinkers, and his impact is nowhere more evident than in writings on art. Bloch was fascinated with art as a reflection of both social realities and human dreams. Whether he is discussing architecture or detective novels, the theme that drives his work is always the same -- the striving for "something better," for a "homeland" that is more socially aware, more humane, more just. The book opens with an illuminating discussion between Bloch and Adorno on the meaning of utopia; then follow 12 essays written between 1930 and 1973 on topics as diverse as aesthetic theory, genres such as music, painting, theater, film, opera, poetry, and the novel, and perhaps most important, popular culture in the form of fairy tales, detective stories, and dime novels. -- Back cover.

Atheism in Christianity: The Religion of the Exodus and the Kingdom (German: Atheismus im Christentum: Zur Religion des Exodus und des Reichs) is a 1968 book by German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch. The book offers a third way to the Christian/atheist either/or debate. Gareth Jenkins from Socialist Review says that Bloch "argues that there are liberatory, 'atheist' elements within Christianity with which socialists should make common cause." (Source: [Wikipedia](

Bloch's literary essays are not, strictly speaking, "theoretical" pieces, certainly not applications to literature of some pre-existing conceptual apparatus. Collectively they represent a field of experiment in which a thinker of astonishing originality exposes his thought to the provocation of literary, musical, and artistic works, but also to such phenomena as advertisements, landscapes, cliches and obsessive images, films, and forms of interaction in country and city. The pieces gathered here, which date from 1913 to 1964, are held together by Bloch's view of the human as being always beyond itself, as anticipating itself and never positively there. This thrust beyond the horizon of positivity expresses itself in wishes, hopes, fantasies, dreams, imaginative creations, and utopian projects.