Frankfurter Slapstick: Benjamin, Kracauer, and Adorno on American Screen Comedy

“Mitogenicity”—the latest and mosthilarious episode in the slapstick comedy of melanoma management

In his “Essay on Comedy” in 1877, George Meredith noted, “the test of true Comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter.” [1] This does not necessarily mean that a comedy must be funny. Laughter can also be provoked by matters serious or sad. Most psychologists agree that the predominant characteristics connected with the phenomenon of laughter are incongruity or contrast in the object cr...

Music Criticism and Adorno

Résumé When thinking of Adorno and music criticism, two strategies suggest themselves. The one is to look at the kind of criticism, cultural criticism in general and music criticism in particular, propagated by Adorno. It is, after all, difficult to overestimate the degree of his influence on musical thought in the twentieth century (whether one agrees with his views or not) and of the intellec...

Readings of Adorno with Tarkovsky and Haneke

Benjamin Silliman Jr.'s 1874 papers: American contributions to chemistry.

To mark the centennial of the discovery of oxygen by Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) on August 1, 1774, H. Carrington Bolton of the Columbia College School of Mines suggested a gathering of American chemists be held to celebrate this event. A suggestion was made by Rachel Bodley of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania that an appropriate place would be Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where Pr...

Transformations in American medicine: from Benjamin Rush to William Osler

established New York University Medical School, who offered the Lyceum three rooms in the Medical School, a step which proved beneficial to both institutions. In the succeeding years several unsuccessful efforts were made to find larger accommodation. A fire in 1863 destroyed the Medical School building, causing the Lyceum to lose everything, including John James Audubon's collection of birds, ...